TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan said Friday, November 13, that companies will have their license revoked if proven to burn peatlands.
“We will be stern. Companies that are proven to burn will have their license revoked,” Luhut said in the an international experts discussion in Jakarta. He said the government will get businesses to be involved in restoring damaged peatland.
International experts and representatives of foreign countries and donors gather in the Shangri-la Hotel in Jakarta on Friday for an intensive discussion to identify a pathway for a long-term solution to Indonesia’s fire and haze crisis.
Legally, companies have the responsibility to be prepared of fires. Earlier Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that at least two million hectares of peatland need to be restored.
Luhut said that in the past the government had issued too many utilization permits on peatlands without fully understanding the consequences of dried peat.
“For dozens of years we manage [our peatlands] badly... Forest fires happen over and over and it was not managed integratedly,” he said.
Luhut said that the government had anticipated the El Nino phenomenon but did not expect the impact to be as severe this year.
“Our growth is impacted because practically the economy stops for Sumatra and Kalimantan [during the haze disaster],” said Luhut.
The discussion is organized by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry jointly with the Norwegian Embassy and the United Nations Development Program.
NZM