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Indonesian gov't wins 817 mln USD lawsuit in land burning case

Xinhua, August 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

JAKARTA, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) The Indonesian government has won a Rp 1.07 trillion (817.07 million U.S. dollars) lawsuit brought against a sago plantation company accused of neglect that caused land burning on 3,000 hectares of peat in Sumatra island's Riau province in 2014, a ministry announced on Friday.

Indonesian Environment and Forestry Ministry said the South Jakarta District Court on Thursday had declared that National Sago Prima (NSP), a subsidiary of the Sampoerna Agro which is part of the Sampoerna Strategic conglomerate, was guilty of setting fire on their land that has caused ecological damages between January - March 2014.

"This is a historic moment for the protection of environment in Indonesia," said Rasio Ridho Sani, the director general for law enforcement at the ministry.

A coalition of environmental groups called Anti Forest-Mafia in a statement applauded the court's decision and also the ministry's bids for justice in the case.

"It has brought a new hope for law enforcement in environmental-related cases in Indonesia," the coalition's statement read on Friday.

"We urge the ministry to continue pursuing for justice in other cases," it added.

NSP was among the dozens of plantation firms that the ministry decided to sue in October, and this was the first win for the government after previously losing in December against a pulp and paper company which was accused of burning 20,000 hectares of land in South Sumatra in 2014.

A lawyer for NSP has said that the company would submit an appeal.

The illegal agricultural practice has long been used to open up areas because it's fast and much cheaper than the more eco-friendly ways. Last year alone saw Indonesia's worst agricultural inferno since 1998, razing over 2 million hectares of land across the archipelago, causing deaths due to respiratory ailments and also financial costs. Endit