Firm told to stop coal mining project in Kutai

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo has ordered PT Taraco Mining and its contractor PT Geoid Reksa Bumi to stop exploring for coal in Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan.

Awang Farouq Ishak, chairman of the East Kalimantan office of the Environmental Impact Management Agency who conveyed Djamaludin's message, said Saturday the companies had explored Banumuda River in the heart of the 200,000-hectare park.

"The minister rejected the exploration after he personally inspected forest fires in Kutai National Park," Awang said after meeting with 120 forest concessionaires and plantation owners in Samarinda.

State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, who witnessed fire fighting operations in the park last week, has also proposed that exploration be halted.

The companies began exploration late last year, prompting local people to encroach on the surveyed area. Local residents falsely claimed ownership of the land so they could seek compensation if the companies mined for coal, Antara reported.

Locals also felled trees and replaced them with cash crops, the report said.

As with plantation and farming activities, it is feared exploring for coal would worsen forest fires in the park, which lost almost 2,000 hectares of forest in the latest fires.

Officials have blamed the fires largely on local people who practice the slash-and-burn farming technique.

Awang urged the East Kalimantan provincial government to investigate whether the companies had proper permits.

The 1990 Conservation Law forbids individuals and/or legal bodies to alter a national park. Those violating the law are liable to a Rp 200 million ($25,000) fine and/or five-year imprisonment if found guilty.

PT Taraco Mining intended to divert the Banumuda and Senggata rivers to facilitate its operations.

Environmentalists say the actual area of Kutai National Park has shrunk to 150,000 hectares since its establishment because of illegal logging and forest fires.

Meanwhile, the Strait Times reported Saturday that two Singapore companies are being investigated for allegedly starting pollution-causing forest fires in Indonesia.

The Singapore firms are among a total of 40 businesses under investigation over the illegal land-clearing fires, which caused disastrous smoke haze to choke much of Southeast Asia from August to November last year.

The smoke was blamed for a number of medical problems in Singapore, and for cutting into the city-state's tourism industry. Several deaths were attributed to the smoke in Malaysia, DPA reported.

Indonesian Environment Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja revealed in an interview with Straits Times newspaper that two Singapore companies were being investigated over the fires. He did not name them.

Sarwono said it was not easy to prosecute companies believed to be involved. "You have to catch them red-handed," he said. "If not, you have to rely on circumstantial evidence."

One of the 40 firms under investigation would be taken to court in Indonesia in the next week, Sarwono told the newspaper Friday.

Seven or eight more are expected to be in court over the fires soon, he said.

New players in Indonesia's agricultural sector, who have largely been blamed for the fires, were "just an awful and greedy lot", the Straits Times quoted Sarwono as saying. (pan)