Jakarta – The government will take to court four regents from East Kalimantan for allegedly selling forest concessions, a senior official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said on Tuesday.

Secretary-General of the ex-ministry of forestry and plantations Suripto said that one of the four regents have sold up to 370 concessions, each covering 100 hectares of forest land.

The concessions were sold at around Rp 10 million ($US1,200) to Rp 600 million depending on the type of forests, he said. "It is more expensive for permits for virgin forests," Suripto said after opening a workshop on forestry here.

The four regents were not only charged with "commercializing" the permits but have also violated the law, he said. According to him, the concessions issued by the four regents are not valid because they were issued after the government introduced a new forestry law late last year.

Although the government has yet to issue guidelines on the mechanism of the issuance of new forestry concessions, the government regulation No. 6/1999 which allowed regency administrations to issue forestry concessions on areas of up to 100 hectares were no longer valid with the implementation of the new law, he said.

Suripto, who will end his term in January next year following the merger of the ministry with the ministry of agriculture into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, said that the issuance of the new forestry concessions had also encouraged the smuggling of heavy logging equipment from Malaysia.

At least 700 units of heavy logging equipment, with a capacity of felling 5,000 cubic meters of trees per month, had been illegally imported from the neighboring country. He said that his office was currently coordinating with the Customs and Excise Office to find out what kind of import permit they use.