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.