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Palm oil company finally pays fines in Aceh forest fire case
While the company’s commitment to eventually pay the fee is widely appreciated, an expert has said the move is too late and insufficient to restore the damaged land.
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Firefighters battle a blaze on July 31, 2021, at a peatland forest in Ogan Ilir, Riau. (AFP/Abdul Qodir)
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fter eight years of avoiding a court order to pay fines for damage from a forest fire it caused, palm oil company PT Kallista Alam has finally started paying for the environmental destruction the company perpetrated through a wildfire more than a decade ago.
While the company’s commitment to eventually pay the fee is widely appreciated, an expert has said the move is too late and insufficient to restore the damaged land.
Kallista paid Rp 57.2 billion (US$3.7 million) to the Environment and Forestry Ministry on Sept. 4, according to a ministry statement issued on Friday.
The amount was only half of the fee that the court ordered. Kallista must pay the remainder by Nov. 18, the ministry added.
The Meulaboh District Court in Aceh ruled in favor of the Environment and Forestry Ministry in a 2014 lawsuit, finding Kallista guilty of burning 1,000 hectares of Tripa Forest in Sumatra. The court ordered the company to pay Rp 114.3 billion in compensation and Rp 251.7 billion to restore the burned land, which contains peatland.
Tripa Forest is part of the Leuser ecosystem of Sumatra where tigers, orangutans and rhinos can be found living in the wild.
The company appealed against the verdict, but the Supreme Court rejected the appeal in 2015. Kallista kept fighting back by filing a lawsuit against the environment ministry, which was eventually rejected by the top court last year.
