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Supreme Court fines company Rp 920 billion over West Kalimantan forest fires
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Volunteer firefighters spray water on burning peatland in Kereng Bangkirai subdistrict, Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, on June 24, 2023. (Antara/Auliya Rahman)
T
he Supreme Court has ordered a palm oil company to pay Rp 920 billion (US$60.9 million) for failing to prevent or extinguish forest fires within its concession area in West Kalimantan, adding to a growing list of firms held responsible for environmental disasters in the country.
The court’s justices upheld on July 3 a lower court’s ruling that oil palm plantation firm PT Rafi Kamajaya Abadi (RKA) was responsible for fires in its concession area in Melawi regency, West Kalimantan, between 2016 and 2019.
The Environment and Forestry Ministry filed the lawsuit against the company in December 2021 for the burning of 2,560 hectares of land within its concession. The ministry won the case in the Sintang District Court and the Pontianak High Court, both in West Kalimantan. The courts ordered the company to pay the Rp 920 billion fines, which included Rp 731 billion to restore the scorched land.
The company then filed its ultimately unsuccessful appeal with the Supreme Court.
Read also: Half of fire risk peatland in concessions areas, report says
Rasio Ridho Sani, the ministry’s law enforcement director general, applauded the ruling. He called it “a lesson for all corporations that burn land and forests” in a written statement on Wednesday.
Rasio said the fires that had broken out in PT RKA’s concession area had impacted public health, caused damage to the land that resulted in biodiversity loss and undermined Indonesia’s climate pledge.
