Government calls off peat land project

Government calls off peat land project

JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie decided on Tuesday to
stop the one-million-hectare peat land conversion scheme in
Central Kalimantan, and ordered several Cabinet ministers to help
the 61,000 transmigrants involved in the disappointing project,
an official said on Tuesday.

Secretary of Development Operations Lt. Gen. (ret) Sintong
Panjaitan said the government would halt the Rp 2 trillion so far
allocated for the project because it had not achieved what it was
intended and was harming the environment.

"The project was improperly designed," Sintong said in a joint
press conference with Central Kalimantan Governor Warsita at the
Bina Graha presidential office.

The President summoned several ministers on Tuesday to discuss
the fate of the ambitious project.

He ordered Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance and
Industry Ginandjar Kartasasmita, who was also involved in
designing the project, to head the government team to settle the
problem.

A government investigation found last year that the peat land
project had destroyed 1.4 million hectares of forest, caused
forest fires and polluted rivers in the locality, and threatened
the habitat of orangutans and proboscis monkeys.

The government has spent Rp 2 trillion developing the project,
which was launched in early 1997 by then president Soeharto.
Initial estimates said the mega project would cost Rp 5 trillion
(US$2.1 billion) to set up. PT Sumatera Timur Indonesia, a
subsidiary of the Sambu Group, was appointed by the government to
develop the area.

The project involves converting one million hectares of peat
swamp land in Central Kalimantan into 638,000 hectares of rice
fields. The remaining 362,000 hectares were to be used for
horticulture, plantations, conservation areas, housing and
reservoirs.

"Because the target of the project is to make a rice
production center, the project will be handled by concerned
ministries," said Sintong.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) estimates
that indigenous people in the villages, known as the Dayak Ngaju,
lost 57 percent of their land to the project and forest fires in
1997.

Walhi's 1998 study discovered that the project degraded the
environment, which had already bee damaged by the practice of
illegal logging, and lowered local people's incomes.

The study also found that the project, which included
ancestral Dayak land, also led to the disintegration of
communities.

Sintong acknowledged on Tuesday that transmigrants were living
in very poor conditions, mainly because the rice harvest was
destroyed by rodents.

He said the President had agreed to provide Rp 57 billion to
provide food for the farmers until the next harvest season and to
repair their houses.

"However, Rp 30 billion of the fund will be used to remove the
rodents," said Warsito.

The governor said the government would not relocate the
transmigrants as 60 percent of them were native Kalimantan
people.

He said the government would convert the paddy fields into
horticulture and hard crop plantations. (prb)