Firm told to stop coal mining project in Kutai

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)