NGO rejects opening forests to mining

NGO rejects opening forests to mining

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A non-governmental environment group said on Thursday it would
reject any plans to allow mining operations in protected forests.

Chalid Muhammad, coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network
(Jatam), which has been very active in criticizing mining
companies in the country, said such a plan was against the law
and caused damage to the surrounding environment.

"Those who propose the idea only want to benefit from the
current weak government position, which badly needs the
investment. It's a cheap, false and dirty tactic," he said in a
statement.

"We urged the government not just to sell mineral resources,
but also to think about the environment," he added.

Chalid said about 11.4 million hectares of the country's
protected forests, which are home to wildlife and indigenous
tribes, would disappear, should the government allow mining
companies to operate in protected forests.

Minister of Forestry M. Prakosa said earlier that the
government was giving consideration to reviewing Forestry Law No
41/1999, which bans opencast mining in protected forests, in
order to allow mining companies to continue their operations in
areas that are now categorized as protected forests.

The law has raised concern among mining investors because it
was issued when many of them had conducted explorations and put a
lot of investment into areas that were later designated as
protected forests.

According to the latest data, about 150 companies have been
banned from exploiting their mining sites as they had been
relabeled as conservation forest areas.

Prakosa, however, said that the government at present
preferred to establish a special team to resolve the problems
faced by mining companies that had obtained mining licenses in
protected forests prior to the enactment of the law.

The team would be established in coordination with the
Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the State Ministry
for Environment.

Prakosa said that the team would immediately start examining
three big cases including the nickel mining operation of PT Gag
Nickel on Gag Island in Irian Jaya, and the case involving a gold
mining company PT Citra Palu Minerals in Central Sulawesi.

Gag Nickel, jointly owned by BHP Pty Ltd and the state-owned
mining firm PT Aneka Tambang, has obtained a license to exploit a
mining site located in the forest on Gag Island before the site
was turned into a conservation forest area by the government.