Indonesia land-burning fines unpaid years after fires

STEPHEN WRIGHT Associated Press 15 Feb 19;

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian plantation companies fined for burning huge areas of land since 2009 have failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties meant to hold them accountable for actions that took a devastating environmental and human toll.

The 10 palm oil and pulp wood companies involved in fires owe more than $220 million in fines and the figure for unpaid penalties for environmental destruction swells to $1.3 billion when an illegal logging case from 2013 is included, according to separate summaries of the cases compiled by Greenpeace and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

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Fears flood water runoff could 'smother' Barrier Reef

AFP 15 Feb 19;

Runoff from recent floods in northern Australia is flowing onto parts of the Barrier Reef, scientists said Friday, starving coral of light and providing fodder for the predatory crown-of-thorns starfish.

Parts of northern Queensland are still reeling after nearly two weeks of unprecedented rainfall that turned roads into rivers and inundated hundreds of homes with floodwater.

Scientists at James Cook University say the floods swelled a number of rivers along hundreds of kilometres of coastline, spilling sediment onto the reef which has reduced water quality and much-needed sunlight.

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