Law Minister Floats Regulating ‘Ecological Terrorism’ in Legislation

Law Minister Supratman Andi Agtas has opened the possibility of classifying forest and land fires as ecological terrorism in legislation.

“It will certainly be [included in the law], because the instruction earlier to the Forestry Minister and the Environment and Forestry Minister was the same, as he stated explicitly,” Supratman said at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Wednesday (21 October).

Supratman said the matter would be covered by legislation, but did not specify which regulation would be used. He said the priority was to ensure firm law enforcement against those responsible for forest and land fires.

“All the laws are already in place; if anything needs to be improved, it can simply be added,” he said.

The term “ecological terrorism” was first used by Prabowo Subianto. At a plenary Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (21 October), he referred to the fires as “environmental terrorism”.

Prabowo said investigations into forest and land fires showed that they were not caused solely by natural factors, but also involved human intervention. He called on police to investigate and take action against those behind the fires.

“We should regard this as environmental terrorism, a crime against humanity, because what they are doing endangers the health of millions of our people,” Prabowo said.