Pulp mill study approval upsets environmentalists

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) criticized the government yesterday for accepting an incomplete feasibility study for the development of a giant pulp mill in South Sumatra.

The study, commissioned by PT Tanjung Enim Lestari Pulp and Paper, reportedly failed to take into account the project's negative impacts on people in surrounding areas.

"Learning from the accumulative impacts (from the clearing of the site) of the project over the years, it is environmentally unfeasible. The plan to construct the factory, therefore, must be scrapped," Chalid Muhammad of the Walhi told a press conference.

PT Tanjung Enim Lestari plans to start building the Rp 2.6 trillion (US$1 billion) pulp mill as soon as it gains a business license from the government. Licenses will only be awarded after a project's environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) has been endorsed.

The company's study was endorsed Monday by the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Central Commission for AMDAL despite Walhi's protests.

Walhi representatives attended the presentation of the company's study to the commission.

Authorized staff at the Environmental Impact Management Agency, which endorses the studies, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Chalid said, "The commission only jotted down our objections, and it only provided trivial explanations to our questions."

Chalid alleged that the study failed to address the destruction of forest caused by the clearing of 1,250 hectares for the pulp mill and its industrial estate.

"It has endangered the lives of people in the five villages in the area whose livelihood depends on the rubber plantation that has been felled," he said.

The mill's site crosses two subdistricts, Gunung Megang and Rambang Dangku, in Muara Enim regency, about 130 kilometers west of South Sumatra's capital of Palembang.

Walhi said the environmental impact assessment failed to mention the relationship between the mill and the timber estate PT Musi Hutan Persada, which will supply the mill's timber.

The mill is scheduled to start operating by the year 2000 with an initial capacity of 450,000 tons of pulp a year.

In its first year of production, the mill is expected to process about two million cubic meters of wood.

"By ignoring the connection between the two, the study has failed to see whether the mill's raw material supplier complies with the environmental law and other laws," Chalid said.

PT Tanjung Enim is owned by Barito Pacific Group (with a 51 percent holding), Sumatra Pulp Corporation (33 percent) and PT Tridan Satriaputra Indonesia (16 percent).

PT Tridan Satriaputra is controlled by President Soeharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana.

Sumatra Pulp Corporation is a joint venture of Marubeni Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries and Japan's Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.

Musi Persada is 60 percent owned by Barito Pacific Group and 40 percent by state-owned PT Inhutani II. Musi Persada has reforested 155,000 hectares of its 300,000-hectare concession, which lies about 25 kilometers south of the mill.

Livelihood

Walhi said the study also failed to mention unfair land appropriation by the company, which forced locals to sell their rubber plantations.

Tamim, 57, a local farmer who came from his hometown of Muara Niru village to attend the press conference, said he was only offered Rp 300 (12 cents) a meter for his land.

Another villager, Umar, 46, said that he and his fellow villagers only wanted a clear explanation on the possible environmental impacts of the mill when it starts production.

Walhi said, "There will have to be rehabilitation and compensation from the company for all the environmental impacts and disadvantages that the people have suffered from this project."

Walhi said that land clearing should not have begun before the study had been endorsed. (aan)