A

span class="inline inline-center">

An 18-year prison sentence requested in February by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for suspended Southeast Sulawesi governor Nur Alam over corruption related to mining permit issuance has been praised for two unprecedented elements.

Firstly, it was the highest ever sentence sought by the KPK for a regional leader. Secondly, it was the first time in its history that the antigraft body included potential environmental losses in calculating the damage caused by a corruption case.

However, the Jakarta Corruption Court’s verdict on Nur Alam’s case on Wednesday has been perceived by analysts as indicative of the country’s ignorance of environmental protection, particularly because the court’s judge panel decided not to include the KPK’s environmental loss calculation into its ruling for the graft defendant.

In the hearing session, the judges sentenced the National Mandate Party (PAN) politician to 12 years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of Rp 1 billion (US$72,700).

“Expert Basuki Wasis could not prove that mining activities conducted by PT AHB had caused soil and environmental damage, which he had included in the state losses,” said judge Joko Subagyo when he read out the verdict.

The expert the judge referred to is a Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) environmental destruction expert who calculated the graft case’s potential environmental losses, which amounted to Rp 2.7 trillion.

Meanwhile, PT Anugerah Harisma Barakah (AHB) is a nickel mining company that obtained permits from Nur Alam, who also owns 2 percent of the company’s shares under the name of his aide.

Previously, the public had pinned hopes on the court including the KPK’s environmental loss calculations in its ruling, setting a new precedent in the handling of environment-related crimes in Indonesia.

Such a move would lead to heavier sanctions that could boost the currently sluggish implementation of environmental protection pledges the government had offered amid ongoing debates on environmental protection versus extractive business expansion.

“The KPK has always been a hero in environmental protection because it has always included potential environmental losses in its sentence demands,” said National Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM) national coordinator Merah Johansyah on Saturday.

“The fact that the calculation was not included in Nur Alam’s case verdict has shown that the judiciary is hindering fair punishment of environmental crime,” said Merah.

The verdict also neglected the complexity of environmental losses reported by Basuki, according to Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Lalola Easter. “These include ecological losses, economic losses and the costs of environmental reparation.”

On his findings, Basuki explained he had found that mining activities linked to Nur Alam’s corruption had damaged forests in Kabaena, an 873-square-kilometer island in Bombana regency, Southeast Sulawesi, where the illegal mining activities took place.

Nickel mining activities had dug more than 25 centimeters deep into the island’s soil and even ignored the fertile part of the soil, Basuki said. When the soil has been destroyed, it can be confirmed that the environment has been degraded too, the expert said, according to the prosecution letter.

The land currently covered by forests in Kabaena Island was originally a rocky area. Weather-related events broke the rocks into smaller rocks. Mosses then grew on those small rocks, followed by the growth of shrubs and tropical forests.

“It would be difficult to restore a degraded forest,” Basuki said.

During his visit to Kabaena Island, Basuki said he also found that coral reefs in waters off the island had been damaged by sediments from intensive nickel mining extracts flowing from rivers to the sea.

“It takes millions of years for dead coral reefs to grow,” Basuki said, adding that miners had a responsibility to ensure the sediments did not flow into the sea.

During Wednesday’s hearing, the court found Nur Alam guilty of misusing his authority by issuing permits for AHB and accepting Rp 40.2 billion in bribes from Hong Kong-based company Richcorp International Ltd, a business partner of AHB. He would appeal the verdict to a higher court while KPK prosecutors said they had not yet decided whether they would appeal the court’s decision.

Permit issuance for businesses related to natural resources, such as mining, timber and oil palm, has become a favorite playing field of corruption practices in Indonesia, home to around 120 million hectares (ha) of forests. The country is currently under pressure from the European Union and foreign environmental NGOs over its intense defense of the palm oil industry.

Permit-related corruption is now a top investigation priority of the KPK.

In February, KPK prosecutors indicted Rita Widyasari, a suspended regent of Kutai Kartanegara in East Kalimantan, for allegedly receiving Rp 6 billion in bribes from a businessman as compensation for helping issue a business permit for the latter’s 16,000 ha of oil palm concession in the regency.

Merah said managing permit-related corruption was important to protect the environment, given that the activities that benefitted from the permits had long been linked to environmental destruction.

“Corruption in the environment sector is more dangerous than traditional corruption related to goods and services procurement projects,” said Merah. “A decision by an administration to grant a permit can have widespread environmental impacts that may be passed down through generations.”