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INDONESIA'S climate change credentials are in tatters after a key player in the country's illegal logging business was acquitted of criminal charges over the destruction of 58,000ha of virgin Sumatran forest.Businessman Adelin Lis, the subject of an international manhunt and what Sumatran police called the most comprehensive investigation they have conducted into forest destruction, avoided a 10-year jail sentence and more than 120 billion rupiah ($14.4 million) in fines and reforestation imposts. Judges at the Medan District Court, in central Sumatra, ruled on Monday that the evidence against Mr Lis was inadequate to prove anything other than "administrative neglect".



Environmental protection groups were assessing their next moves yesterday but predicted the world's judgment would be harsh ahead of the UN climate change conference in Bali next month. "This does irreparable damage to Indonesia's forest protection credentials, " Rully Syumanda, legal adviser to the peak environment body Walhi, told The Australian. Mr Lis was arrested in Beijing last year after fleeing charges of illegal logging causing damages to the state estimated at Rp230trillion. The head of forestry firm Majur Timber Group and two related companies, he was charged under anti-corruption laws with failing to pay forestry concession fees and compulsory reforestation funds.




In Riau alone, a single province of Sumatra, police say the damages in all illegal logging cases they have taken through to prosecution stage is Rp1800 trillion, though they admit that is a fraction of the real total. The prosecution success rate is "less than 1 per cent, and that's usually truck drivers and plantation workers", Mr Syumanda said yesterday. "The directors or agents ... are never touched." Indonesia is estimated to lose 27,000sqkm of forest annually, or one soccer field every 10 seconds, largely because companies ride roughshod over forestry concession regulations. In the face of this, Australia recently announced a $100million reforestation scheme on the huge central island of Kalimantan as part of its broader climate change abatement program. The project, to which Canberra will contribute $40million, includes Australian-British company BHP Billiton, a major mining player on the island.




The Bali conference is intended to steer talks between member states of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to a new agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, as president of the peak UN body, will be facing tough questions about the host nation's lack of action on deforestation. But Mr Witoelar at least has a strong record as an environmental activist. Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban, on the other hand, is under heavy scrutiny after welcoming Mr Lis's unexpected release from police custody. Mr Kaban has previously said - controversially - that a presidential- level committee charged with eradicating illegal logging was intended to ensure the industry's survival, and was "not intended to obstruct or stop companies' production".




That committee recommended this week that civil cases be brought against illegal loggers even if criminal cases were not ready, in a last-gasp effort to chase restitution for the problem. But compensation was missing the point, Mr Syumanda said. "By 2022 there will be no virgin forest left in Indonesia. By 2015, forests in Java and Sumatra will have collapsed, if we keep using them at current rates." Mr Lis expressed only surprise at the court decision. "I'm extremely moved that the law took my side. I'm innocent," he said.


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