T

he government remains optimistic that it would win in a lawsuit filed by timber giant Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) over its decision to prohibit RAPP from planting acacia on the company’s peatland concessions.

The nation’s second-biggest pulp and paper company has been demanding that the Jakarta Administrative Court revoke the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s Oct. 16 decision to invalidate the firm’s 2010-2019 working plans, which included the planting of acacia on peatland.

RAPP, a subsidiary of APRIL, a part of Singapore-based conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) owned by Indonesian magnate Sukanto Tanoto, claimed the ministry had failed to respond to its Oct. 18 letter objecting the invalidation within 10 days of the government’s notice, as required by law. Therefore, the company said, the government’s decision should be declared void.

RAPP further claimed the government’s decision to axe its working plans had incurred losses to the company, which reacted to the invalidation in October by furloughing 4,600 workers.

RAPP’s lawyer in the case, Hamdan Zoelva, a former Constitutional Court (MK) chief justice, claimed last week that the government’s move was tantamount to “killing the company.”

In a hearing on Monday, however, expert witnesses testified to defend the government’s decision, saying it had not been made “arbitrarily” and was part of corrective actions to revive Indonesia’s peatland and prevent forest and land fires.

Legal experts present at the hearing said a response to RAPP’s objection letter could have taken the form of “factual actions,” referring to the ministry’s numerous attempts after Oct. 18 to facilitate the company in revising its working plans.

Speaking to the media on Monday evening, Environment and Forest Ministry secretary-general Bambang Hendroyono said the government would eventually win the case because of the rationale conveyed by legal experts.

“Those measures were a large part of our corrective actions; they were our efforts to communicate [with RAPP]. In conclusion, our response was a show of good governance,” Bambang said.

RAPP, which was established in 1993, currently manages around 338,536 hectares of concession areas in Riau, at least 60 percent of which are peatland, the main source of annual forest and land fires in Indonesia.

In May, the government ordered companies to revise their working plans to comply with new regulations protecting peatland amid fears of further forest and land fires.

But according to officials, RAPP had been recalcitrant by refusing to revise its working plans, with the reason that they were set to expire in 2019.

The ministry claimed RAPP’s plans lacked details on peatland protection efforts, and still included the planting of acacia — widely used to produce paper — on peatland concessions.

In a number of encounters with reporters, RAPP highlighted the ways it had contributed to improving the local economy with its pulp and paper investment.

In a statement released by RAPP’s legal defense team, the firm claimed it had invested some Rp 85 billion (US$1.32 million) in the pulp and paper business since 1993, and planned to invest another Rp 15 billion in an upcoming upstream venture to produce pulp for the textile sector.

Ignatius Ari Djoko Purnomo, a spokesman for RGE, said any business activities conducted under its flag never been aimed at violating the law.

He said RAPP was still waiting for the government to fulfill its promise of providing substitution land for areas that were rezoned for protected peatland.

“We are ready to relocate our plantations, as long as the government provides the details of the land swap,” Ignatius said in Singapore last Friday, referring to the name of the policy.

Ignatius claimed both APRIL and RAPP were committed to protecting peatland, in line with one of RGE’s commitments to sustainable business.