INDONESIA A NEWS

The world’s largest producer of teak, an Indonesian state-owned company on the island of Java, has again been awarded sustainable forest management certification. But the company has a long and sometimes contentious relationship with forest communities in the area, and the forest rights of indigenous communities remain a potential cause of conflict.  “Land rights have long been a source of violence on Java,” Rhett Butler, a leading environmentalist and creator of a leading environmental news website told IRIN. Perhutani (Indonesian state forestry company) exploits 2.4 million hectares of forests in Java - 7 percent of the island area - with earnings of around US$400 million in 2011.  Although Perhutani agreed in 2011 to the voluntary process that promotes eco-friendly management in order to obtain certification, it controls a huge area of forest once used by indigenous communities, many of whom still depend on the forests for their livelihoods.  The company n...

Once again, it’s that time of year when areas of Jakarta find themselves hip-deep in water, the victims not so much of the seasonal downpours but of poor sanitation, lagging infrastructure and substandard drainage. It is estimated that the health of as many as 5 million of Jakarta official 10.1 million residents are being threatened by river water that is polluted by household and industrial waste. As many as 50,000 people die annually in Indonesia, attributed to poor sanitation and hygiene, according to a March, 2008 study by the World Bank, which estimates that as much as 6 million tonnes of human waste are released into Indonesia inland water bodies without treatment. Unfortunately, Jakarta is far from alone. As cities have grown to unmanageable size in third-world countries, the problem is being compounded by climate change, which climatologists believe has increased the number of adverse weather events. Anothe...

"Things happen for a reason" ... Rizni Aulia believes this week's earthquake, like the one in 2004, was a warning from Allah. "Things happen for a reason" ... Rizni Aulia believes this week's earthquake, like the one in 2004, was a warning from Allah. Photo: Michael Bachelard WHEN pentecostal pastor Danny Nalliah thundered that the 2009 Victorian bushfires were caused by God's wrath at that state's decision to decriminalise abortion, he was an outlier even among radical Christians. But in Aceh, Indonesia's most devout province (and its most disaster prone), it's not just common but mainstream to believe that Wednesday's terrifying earthquake, like the tsunami before it, was a messages from Allah that people were not taking their religion seriously enough. Like many, Acehnese man Rizni Aulia's suffering from the 2004 tsunami was profound. Of his family, only he and his wife survived the wave. Together they watched from the second st...

The survival of Sumatra's tigers, elephants, orangutans, rhinos, as well as indigenous communities, is threatened by the "world's fastest deforestation rate", caused by the pulp and paper industry, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).  WWF in a recent report named Indonesian-based Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) as "responsible for more forest destruction in Sumatra than any other single company". APP and competitor Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd (APRIL) have consumed the majority of the wood harvested from commercial forest clearances and agriculture conversion.  "In central Sumatra, the impact of APP's operations on wildlife has been devastating. The company's forest clearing in Riau Province has been driving Sumatran elephants and tigers toward local extinction," the report said.  The companies have also begun clearing peat swamp forests. According to Indonesian Ministry of Forestry estimates, deforestation associated wit...

 Illegal forest clearing fires in Indonesia's Sumatra Island are sending haze across the Malacca Strait to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, causing the worst air pollution since 2006, officials said Thursday. The haze prompted Malaysia to alert vessels in the Malacca Strait of poor visibility as short as two nautical miles and shut many schools. Singapore, covered in thick smoke this week, saw its three-hour Pollutant Standards Index recording rise to an "unhealthy" range of 108 as of 6 p.m. (1000 GMT), much higher than 80 on Wednesday, which was the worst since 2006. The port and international airport are still functioning normally. "The suspicion is that this is coming from forests that have been opened up for plantations. We think it may be for palm oil," Purwasto Saroprayogi, head of the land and forest fires department at Indonesia's Environment Ministry, told Reuters. Saroprayogi said the haze was caused by fires lit to clear land illegally in ...

GREENPEACE has told the Indonesian government its Rainbow Warrior vessel has been invited to visit a natural disaster area in politically sensitive West Papua. The ship remained anchored outside Indonesian territorial waters yesterday as officials and MPs wrangled over the government's refusal to allow it to port in Jakarta on Wednesday. West Papua was not listed on Rainbow Warrior's Indonesian itinerary, with Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo telling The Weekend Australian that an invitation from the provincial governor came after the visit application was lodged. Mr Naidoo said Rainbow Warrior had been asked to visit Wasior, where flooding and landslides killed 145 people 12 days ago, by governor Abraham Octavianos Atururi, but would go only with proper authorisation. During a visit on Thursday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono denied the Wasior disaster had been caused by deforestation, as claimed by Greenpeace and local NGOs. The...

Indonesia has announced a two-year moratorium on rainforest logging in return for up to $1bn in aid from Norway, which will help preserve forests. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's president, made the announcement on a visit to Oslo, the Norwegian capital, on Wednesday. "We will ... conduct a moratorium for two years where we stop the conversion of peat land and of forest," Yudhoyono said at a joint press conference with Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian prime minister, a day before an international deforestation conference started in Oslo. The Norwegian aid to Indonesia will come from a fund that Oslo set up to fight deforestation around the world. Together with Brazil, Indonesia boasts one of the world's largest rain forests, which function as global "lungs" that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. The country, however, also accounts for a large portion of the world's deforestation, especially on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. According to Greenp...

When President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson of Iceland came to open the 2010 World Geothermal Congress on April 226 in Bali with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono it was as if the fiery spirit of geothermal energy was angry with the human race. The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull had thrown up huge clouds of ash, bringing Western European air traffic to a halt for days. But Grimsson came from his small island state near the Arctic circle with its population of 318,000 to inspire President Yudhoyono with his population of 230 million that Indonesia, with 40 percent of world geothermal energy resources, could succeed in developing clean sustainable geothermal energy. The World Geothermal Congress 2010 hopefully marks a turning point for an industry which just reached global electrical production capacity of 10 GWe - or 10,000 megawatts (MW) - although Indonesia alone probably needs an extra 5 GWe every year to keep up with demand. The geothermal industry is growing up, with an e...

Two leading consumer-goods companies, Unilever and Nestle, have stopped buying palm oil for use in its products from Indonesia's largest producer, Sinar Mas. The firm is accused by Greenpeace, the environmental activists, of illegally clearing forests in Indonesia for its plantations. Sinar Mas denies the claims and says it has hired independent auditors to prove its case. In a telephone interview on Tuesday to Al Jazeera, Vikram Agarwal, Unilever Asia's vice-president of supply management in Singapore, said: "Unilever's decision to suspend these purchases of palm oil was triggered by serious charges made against the company. Not just in December 2009, but going back to when the first quotes appeared from Greenpeace in April 2008, as well from other NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and independent auditors." He said the purpose of "making our purchases as of now is to make it clear to them that the burden of proof now rests with them [Sinar Ma...

THE pilot at the controls when a Garuda plane crashed in Yogyakarta killing 21 people, including five Australians, should be jailed for four years for causing the accident through criminal negligence, prosecutors have told a panel of judges.The sentence request angered Captain Marwoto Komar's lawyers but was far less than the jail term prosecutors could have asked for if they had decided he had deliberately caused the crash on March 7, 2007. "The air at the time was clear, the runway was clear and no other plane was about to take off," prosecutors told Sleman District Court in Yogyakarta. "The defendant was not careful enough . [and] is legally and convincingly proven to have caused the death of 21 people and left 32 others with serious injuries."Yesterday the court heard that on approach the plane was travelling at 240 knots, about twice the speed recommended for a safe landing. It also tried to land from 5000 feet, rather than the appropriate height of 4000 fe...

Indonesia announced on Monday plans to spend rapidly $3.56bn saved from the 2008 budget on infrastructure projects and tax breaks to stimulate the economy and mitigate the impacts of the global economic crisis. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister, said much more money could be available if conditions warranted it. She said this could come from either a $5.5bn (?4bn, £3.8bn) standby budget facility co-ordinated by the World Bank or new bonds. She claimed international demand for Indonesian debt was mounting because yields were many times higher than anything available in the west.Analysts say Indonesia's macroeconomic fundamentals are more robust than most countries in the region and much healthier than was predicted only two months ago. This is thanks largely to exports accounting for only about 14 per cent of economic growth, which was about 6.1 per cent last year and is forecast to be between 4 per cent and 5 per cent this year.But they warn against complacency, citing th...

Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday approved a long-delayed mining law that experts say will deter large-scale investments. The biggest change is that permits known as contracts of work, which were issued by the central government and were valid for 30 years with a possible 20-year extension, will be replaced with licences. In most cases, licences will be issued by district governments, which are regarded as more inconsistent than the central government and can be changed or cancelled with little or no warning. Indonesia's mineral deposits, particularly coal, gold, copper and tin, are amongst the world's richest but its mining policies have been amongst the least attractive to foreign investors. Investors have largely ignored Indonesia since 1999 because of legal uncertainties, especially following the devolution of many powers to provincial and district governments. However, mining groups such as Freeport-McMoRan, Inco, Newmont and Newcrest have operations in the country. Pr...

The remains of a house all but swallowed by disgorged earth that erupted during exploratory drilling for natural gas in Indonesia. Victims receive little government aid. (Mamat/Agence France-Presse) Driven out by mud in Indonesia By Seth Mydans Published December 15, 2008 Her children insist, so every week or two Lilik Kamina takes them back to their abandoned village to look at the mud. "Hey, Mom, there's our house, there's the mango tree," she said they shout. But there is nothing to see, only an ocean of mud that has buried this village and a dozen more over the past two and a half years. The mud erupted here during exploratory drilling for natural gas, and it has grown to be one of the largest mud volcanoes ever to have affected a populated area.Unlike other disasters that torment Indonesia - earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis - this one continues with no end in sight, and experts say the flow could continue for many years or decades. The steaming mud keeps bubbling...

John, let me quote these tagline I posted here early this year regarding East Timor (surely to Papua issue as weel), and be glad when you find it deep in your heart there should be peaceful and win-win action for the foundation of all action ETAN and Djamin, Bush or Obama, TNI or NGO's, Wiranto or Usman - people might pick up soon after reading your letter. Here they are :------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------Let those bond by God's hand, not be separated by trades, naturalresources, greeds and guns.Let those bond by one coastline, not be separated by walls of manmade.------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- -------- If you are agree with the tagline, believe me, that I will 100 percent stand by you both in mind and soul, and I will do any efforts necessary to make the fight echoes round the globe.As long as you find that "those" mentioned on the tagline above STANDS FOR our beloved NKRI, even greater than that. Try to love this co...

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said democracy is a way to attain a country's prosperity. Islamic teachings are expected to support the implementation of democracy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Democracy in every country is determined by its system, its culture and historical back ground. "The objective of a country is to achieve prosperity," Kalla said at the official opening of the second meeting of the Southeast Asian Forum on Islam and Democracy at the vice president's office, today (13/8).According to Kalla, democracy is a system found in many countries such as Indonesia, the United States, Europe, and Korea. Moslems in ASEAN, must respect democracy and diversity. Kalla further said that the Moslem community is currently the biggest population in Indonesia. "However, quantity is not more important than the values they hold," he said. He believes that Islam and democracy have always been interesting topics of discussion, especially wh...

THE former head of the Indonesian military's special forces and deputy head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) has been arrested for the murder of the country's leading human rights activist. Major-General Muchdi Purwopranjono surrendered to police in Jakarta last night and was charged with the premeditated murder of Munir Thalib. The poisoning of Mr Munir on a flight to Amsterdam in 2004 has been Indonesia's most controversial crime, with allegations the murder was sanctioned at the highest level, dogging President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.Mr Munir angered Indonesia's military and intelligence elite by exposing widespread corruption and human rights abuses in the provinces of Aceh and Papua. At the time of the murder, Muchdi was the deputy director of BIN, responsible for covert operations.Police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said Muchdi, now retired, was being held in police custody.He revealed a warrant had been issued for his arrest several days ago, but th...

De Telegraaf writes about a book over orang-utans called 'Thinkers of the jungle' by the Dutch environmentalist Willie Smits.The book, containing many unique photographs of orang-utans, goes on sale on Wednesday in bookstores in The Netherlands. Smits first wrote the book in German, which caused considerable commotion in 2007. He says: "I hope that people become angry, because they'll be able to see with their own eyes the total lack of respect for nature." The author has worked thirty years in Indonesia, where he fell in love with the orang-utans. "In 1989 I found a half-dead orang-utan in a garbage dump. I helped that magnificent being to recover. I expressly use the word being because you can't call an anthropoid (ape) an animal. They are nearly a hundred percent human. Since 1989 I've met around 1,300 apes. They've become my friends." Among the pictures are those of orang-utans fishing. They stand on stones in the water holding a stick wa...