Indonesian government admits failure in supervising mining firms

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 10 Feb 10;

The weak supervision of coal mining firms operating in Kalimantan has caused widespread environmental damage, say officials.

The Environment Ministry said Tueday the weak monitoring by authorities had not effectively resolved long-standing problems and had put the environment in a critical condition.

“The main problem is weak supervision from the government, including from the Environment Ministry,” Illyas Asaad, deputy for environmental compliance at the ministry told reporters.

He had attended a working meeting Tuesday with the House of Representative’s Commission VII on environmental affairs.

“There are too many environmental problems in Kalimantan now. It is not effective if we only enforce the law on a number of com-panies. We need to build an inte-grated system to resolve the problems.”

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta made unscheduled inspections at a number of coal mining companies in the South Kalimantan on Sunday.

Gusti, who is originally from Kalimantan, admitted that small-scale coal mining companies had failed to comply with obligations to protect the environment as stated in the documents related to the environmental management scheme (UKL) and the environmental monitoring scheme (UPL).

“The documents require companies to manage their environment, but during my visit, I found that small-scale coal mining companies did not have effective waste management policies,” he said.

He said that his office would conduct an environmental audit to determine the sanctions to be imposed on the companies.

“But as there are no human fatalities in the case, we will prioritize administrative sanctions, of which the companies must set up fond or restore former mining lands,” he said.

Gusti’s office previously sent a team to investigate environmental damage by coal mining activities in Kalimantan.

A team from the Forestry Ministry is currently in the province to check possible violations by small-scale and big coal mining firms operating in forest areas.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan insisted that his office had never issued licenses to rent conservation forests, including in Kali-mantan, to be used for coal mining activities.

“So all mining companies operating in the forest land without proper licenses are operating illegally,” he said.

Data from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) shows that currently 1,180 small-scale mining companies were operating in the East Kalimantan province with 33 big coal mining firms.

In South Kalimantan, there are more than 400 small-scale coal mining firms and about 427 small coal mining firms in Southeast Kalimantan.