Stop burning land or have licenses revoked: Minister

Stop burning land or have licenses revoked: Minister

JAKARTA (JP): Ad interim Minister of Agriculture, Soni
Harsono, has warned plantation companies to stop slash-and-burn
practices or have their licenses revoked.

Soni said Wednesday that many plantation companies in Sumatra
and Kalimantan were using fire to clear land, causing haze
problems as far as neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.

"The ministry will immediately revoke their permits if they
continue to burn land," said Soni, State Minister for Agrarian
Affairs who is temporarily replacing Minister of Agriculture
Sjarifudin Baharsjah, who is in the United States on an official
visit.

The Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo earlier
this week named 175 plantation companies found guilty of using
slash-and-burn methods.

Djamaluddin said he had given the 175 firms a 15-day ultimatum
to stop using fire to clear land or have their licenses revoked.

The 175 companies include 133 (75.5 percent) plantation
companies, 28 (16 percent) estates and 15 (8.5 percent)
contractors opening up areas for the government's transmigration
programs.

Soni, who is also chairman of the National Land Agency, said
that if plantation licenses were revoked it would also terminate
land use for business permits, which were issued by his agency.

Despite public criticism against the government for not doing
enough to dispel the haze, Soni said the Ministry of Agriculture
would improve cooperation with other related agencies to bring
the fires under control.

Chairman of the Association of Agriculture Experts (Perhepi),
H.S Dillon, lamented that some state-owned plantation firms used
slash-and-burn methods to clear land.

Dillon suggested the government punish the state plantation
firms and impose a hefty fine on private companies.

The forest fires have engulfed about 300,000 hectares of land
in Sumatra and Kalimantan this year. The fires are the worst to
affect the country since 1982, when flames destroyed up to two-
million hectares of forest in East Kalimantan. (08)