|
In the latest effort to improve protection of the country's
rain forests, the government will require mining firms operating in
both plantation and protected forests to make an up-front compensation
payment for the destruction of forest cover and to cover any
environmental damage their activities might cause.
It will also revoke a mining company's lease -- which is renewable
every five years-- and rehabilitate the area if the firm is found to
have abandoned the site, Forestry Minister M.S. Kaban said after a
Thursday meeting on the issue with Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Energy
and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, and Investment
Coordinating Board (BKPM) chairman M. Lutfi.
The new policy comes against the backdrop of the House of
Representatives's deliberations of the draft mining law, and the
upcoming signing of a new investment deal worth US$1.2 billion in
Pomala, South Sulawesi, with Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.
It may also be seen as a compromise between the divergent interests of
the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry -- which wants to encourage
more mining -- and the Forestry Ministry and State Ministry for the
Environment -- both of which are concerned with protecting Indonesia's
forests.
"I think this is a step forward. We've all agreed that those involved
in mining in forest areas will have to take conservation and
environmental aspects into consideration. Previously there was no
mechanism requiring them to pay for this," Kaban said.
Further explaining the new policy, which will be put into effect
through a regulation of the forestry minister issued in line with the
proposed new mining law, Kaban said the amount of the forest
compensation payment would be assessed on a case-by-case basis
depending on how much forest was destroyed by each mining operation.
Those operating in protected areas will be required to pay more than
those mining in forestry plantations, he said.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati had earlier proposed that the
compensation payments be treated as local taxes for accounting purposes.
Kaban declined to say how much the compensation payments might amount
to.
Purnomo said that assessments would be conducted by an
inter-ministerial team under the coordination of the Vice President and
senior government officials so as to avoid conflicts of interest.
Last year, the Forestry Ministry issued a regulation requiring every
mining firm that wishes to operate in forest areas to provide
compensatory land amounting to twice the area of the site on which it
proposed to establish its mine. Those failing to comply with the
requirement within a period of two years are required to pay a penalty
amounting to 1 percent of their production values.
Mining firms and associations objected to the regulation, arguing it
would impose too much of a burden on top of the royalties they already
had to pay.
|
