State agencies responsible for managing and protecting the environment have come out in favor of a proposal to establish an integrated agency to deal with environmental crimes, but the affected industries remain entrenched within complex business, government and criminal networks left over from the corrupt regime of former president Suharto.

Integrated agency

The Indonesian Center for Environment Law (ICEL) first proposed the concept of an integrated agency to supervise, investigate and prosecute violations of the environment law after related ministers and the police expressed mutual dissatisfaction with the recent handling of several high-profile cases.

The National Police, Attorney General's Office and Environment Ministry at an ICEL seminar on November 22 announced they supported the establishment of the agency to help overhaul the current ineffective mechanism for dealing with environmental crimes.

Police representative at the seminar Brigadier General Edi Darnadi said Environment Minister Nabiel Makarim and National Police chief Dai Bachtiar must sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) if the integrated agency is to become a reality.

ICEL senior counsel Ahmad Santosa said his organization has suggested five proposals to the Supreme Court for improving the prevailing mechanisms for the prosecution of environmental violations.

He said judges should be trained in environment law as well as environmental problems and solutions, while the justice system should incorporate several new bodies to deal with cases: an ad hoc court, a special court chamber for environmental matters, and a special court similar to the State Administrative Court.

Many high-profile cases are already before the courts and many more seem bound for complex and convoluted legal wrangles, as the following brief overview of cases and issues reveals.

Supreme courting of environmental disaster

A controversial government regulation allowing mining in protected forests is about to be challenged through a judicial review at the Supreme Court at the instigation of an alliance of non-governmental organizations.

People's Forestry Communication Forum (FKKM) member and executive director of the Natural Resources Law Institute (IHSA) Sulaiman N. Sembiring filed their case on Tuesday.

He said Regulation No. 34/2002 issued in June is riddled with legal inconsistencies, not least that it allows open-pit mining in protected forests in direct contravention of Law No. 41/1999 on Forestry which clearly bans such mining activities.

The regulation allows the president to give the go-ahead for mining in protected forests, whereas Law No. 41/1999 stipulates that such a decision must be approved by the House of Representatives.

Sembiring said the regulation also incorporates a number of articles that recentralize authority to manage forests in violation of the spirit of Law No. 22/1999 on regional autonomy and Regulation No. 25/2000 on the authority of central government and regional governments.

Under the regional autonomy laws, which came into effect on January 1, 2001, local governments are given broad powers in regulating their industries, as well as 70% of oil and gas royalties and 80% of mining, forestry and fisheries royalties.

Action by the Association of Regional Administrations (Apkasi) against the regulation is still ongoing.

Sembiring said FKKM encompasses several NGOs concerned with forest conservation, including Forest Watch Indonesia, the Alliance of Adat Societies of Indonesia (AMAN) and the Environmental Law Foundation (IHSA).

They are urging the government to issue policies that conserve the country's forests rather than exploit them.

Monitoring the monitors

Meanwhile, the government is also embroiled in deciding just which companies will get to keep their permits to exploit forest resources.

The Forestry Ministry last month appointed 12 auditors and warned that companies found to have neglected environmental standards would have their licenses revoked.

Called the Independent Verification Institute (LPI), the auditors will be paid to assess whether 412 logging concessionaires operating over a massive 37 million hectares of forest area have obeyed government requirements on reforestation and other environmentally sustainable practices in their concession areas.

LPI was due to begin work late this month and the ministry expects to have 296 logging companies audited by the end of 2003, reported Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

But the ministry has been forced to establish a supervisory body to monitor LPI following reports that at least three of its auditors have business links to logging concession holders, including timber tycoon Bob Hasan, a notorious business crony of former president Suharto currently serving a six-year prison term for corruption.

The supervisory body may remove forest auditors suspected of corruption or collusion with concessionaires, The Jakarta Post reported.

Agus Setyarso, a member of the supervisory body, said the supervisory team would check the audit results and verify them against on-field conditions in the concessionaires' areas.

The Forestry Ministry has also set up an advisory council to settle concessionaires' complaints of unfair treatment by the auditors.

Court delays

While these new initiatives with the support of NGOs represent a major turning point in the effort to control the forestry industry, the legal 'ins and outs' also represent barriers to enforcement.

Ironically, as pointed out by Forestry Ministry secretary general Wahjudi Wardojo at the ICEL gathering, the judicial review of the regulation on mining in protected forests would delay the government's plan to revoke the licenses of forest management companies found guilty of damaging the environment.

The Forestry Ministry revoked the Industrial Plantation Forest (HTI) concessions of 15 companies at the end of last month and as many as 14 of them are now suing Forestry Minister Mohammad Prakosa at the State Administrative Court.

Indonesian Forestry Society (MPI) chairman Sudradjad said he hoped the lawsuit would prompt the minister to restore the permits and seek a mutually beneficial solution with the companies.

He said restoration of the permits would enable the firms to continue their development of timber estates and maintain payments of reforestation funds, whereas revocation of the licenses would cause the loss of up to 28,000 jobs in the sector. "The condition would no doubt raise the intensity of social upheaval," he added.

Sudradjad also argued that revocation of the permits would leave the timber estates susceptible to uncontrolled illegal logging.

Deddy Kusmayadi of the Indonesian Forestry Companies Association (APHI) said loss of the estates would render the forestry firms unable to repay their debts.

APHI lawyer Riza Suarga said the association had no other recourse but to refer the case to court.

One of the affected companies, Singapore-based pulp firm United Fiber System Ltd, formerly known as Poh Lian, on 13 November declared the ministry had no legal basis to revoke the forestry concessions of its subsidiary PT Hutan Rindang Banua, previously known as PT Menara Hutan Buana.

"The company has been advised by its Indonesian legal counsel that the ministry does not, pursuant to the Indonesian legal provisions relied upon by it, have a legal basis to revoke the concession," the firm said in a statement.

On paper

State-owned plantation company PT Perhutani maintains that robbery and pillaging of its concession areas has seen five million cubic meters of timber "lost" over the last five years.

Logging over the last five years reached 243,158 cubic meters from its teak plantations and 932,979 cubic meters of natural forest timber, company spokesman Bambang Adji Sutjahjo told Bisnis Indonesia.

He said Perhutani would not reach its target this year of 20,694 cu.m and had only produced 4,224 cubic metres over the January-May period.

But forestry companies operating in Indonesia are notoriously bad at reaching their targets. Why? Because the illegal trade is massive – by some estimates 60% of the wood processed every year is illegally felled.

Last year, the Kompas daily reported that 45 of 54 forest concession holders were active, each cutting down an average of around 25,000 cubic meters of timber annually, just 22% of their official logging targets.

Log production from West Papua between 1995-2000 was 1.7 million cubic meters per year or just 37% of the annual target of 4.5 million cubic meters.

In 1999, the World Bank predicted that all lowland commercially viable forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan would be exhausted within five to ten years, while Indonesian NGO WALHI estimates Papua's vast forests will only last another 14 years. The total land area of West Papua is around 41 million hectares.

• Figures differ according to sources. The International Crisis Group (ICG) put the total area of logging concessions at 13 million hectares in 2001, while FWI/GFW put the figure at 11.5 million ha in 1998.
• In 1998, over 650 companies held forest concessions covering around 48.3 million ha.
• In 1999, around 561 companies controlled 52.5 million ha for mining.
• In 2000, over 2,000 companies were operating big plantations controlling a total of 3.52 million ha.
• In contrast, the 1993 agricultural census revealed that the country's 19.71 million farmers controlled a total of 17.4 million hectares of farmland, an average of 0.87ha each. (Source: The Jakarta Post 31/5/02)

Between 1985 and 1997, forest cover in Papua was reduced by around 1.8 million hectares, compared with 10 million ha in Kalimantan and 6.5 million ha in Sumatra.

Perhutani Violence in Blora & Banten The events outlined below show that state-owned plantation company Perhutani remains an unreconstructed Suharto-era firm, using violence and intimidation to deal with community opposition to its plans.

This undermines the company's attempts to present itself to foreign buyers as a socially and environmentally progressive producer.

Perhutani has already run into trouble over certificates issued by international eco-labeling organization, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In August 2001 Smartwood, an FSC-accredited certifier, suspended certificates for timber from four Perhutani plantations in Java. This year, the Indonesian forestry NGO LATIN pulled out of its relationship with Smartwood over problems with certification of Perhutani units.

Recent incidents of violence and destruction in Blora and Banten will do nothing to improve Perhutani's record.

Tortured to death in Blora

A 40 year-old villager died last month, allegedly after being tortured by a Perhutani official on Blora, Central Java.

According to a local media report circulated by the NGO ARuPA, Wiji from Jomblang village, Jepon subdistrict, was abducted in October by Perhutani staff while on his way home from buying timber in Payaman – a village located in forest land in Jiken subdistrict.

After being tortured by an official from Perhutani KPH Cepu for three hours, Wiji fell into a coma and suffered bleeding from his ear. He was taken to hospital but died a few days later. His family has demanded compensation for hospital and medical fees, and damages, and want the man responsible to be sacked.

In response, the Blora District Association of Village Heads issued a list of demands, including an immediate end to violence and the torture of villagers in Blora; prosecution of those responsible; reform of forest management in Blora in order to benefit forest-dependent villagers, and the setting up of a working group to monitor actions taken by Perhutani to address conflicts over forests. (Source: Radar Bojonegoro 14/Oct/02; ARuPA 20/Oct/02 and others.)

Banten: victimization of peasants continues

Perhutani staff have carried out arrests and house-burnings in Cibaliung village, Banten province, in an attempt to evict farmers from land claimed by the company.

In a series of incidents in September and October 2002, the Perhutani men burned or destroyed at least 56 houses, destroyed crops and burned down a village meeting hall used by the farmers. They also made threats against farmers and their families who refused to stop planting crops on the land.

In late October, two Cibaliung farmers were arrested. One of them, Roji (45), was arrested by Perhutani staff and police, who fired shots in the air when other farmers tried to find out why he was being arrested. The second detainee, Durahman (85), was arrested by police.

Roji had earlier been told by Perhutani staff that he must plant teak on the land if he wanted to continue farming.

The arson attacks, arrests and threats are a continuation of Perhutani's campaign of violence and intimidation against the Cibaliung farmers.

In November 2001, 47 farmers were rounded up in a pre-dawn raid on the village. Some were handcuffed and beaten during the raid, which involved armed members of the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police and the military. While in detention their homes and possessions were burned. The farmers were arrested because they had reoccupied their own land, which had been taken over by Perhutani in 1980.

Nine of these farmers, all but one of whom are members of the Banten Peasants' Union, remain in detention. They were charged with timber theft and forest destruction under the 1999 Forestry Law and in May this year were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one year and one year and 10 months. Another member of the union, Dasa (54), was arrested in June 2002.

The Banten land conflict was one of two cases investigated in April this year by an international fact-finding team from human rights organizations and farmers' movements from 6 countries (Germany, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and East Timor) and members of peasant organizations from several provinces of Indonesia. The mission was carried out as part of the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, launched by FIAN International and La Via Campesina.

In February, the two organizations issued a call for concerned citizens to write to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, urging her to investigate the matter and ensure that the land be returned to the peasant farmers.