Lack of knowledge on environmental issues is blamed for lenient verdicts given by Indonesian courts to those deemed responsible for the destruction.

Enforcement of the law against those who commit environmental crimes in Indonesia has proved to fail as a deterrent. A series of trials of corporations held responsible for devastating and widespread forest and land fires last year ended in an anticlimax, sending the worrying message that burning forests is permissible.

The recent acquittal of Frans Katihokang, the operations manager of PT Langgam Inti Hibrindo, a palm oil company operating in the Riau regency of Pelalawan, is just another major blow to the country’s bid to cut the cycle of forest fires that have caused environmental damage affecting not only millions of Indonesian citizens, but also people in neighboring states.

In its verdict read out in the evening of June 9, the panel of judges found that state prosecutors had failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge the defendant with negligence resulting in land fires, let alone with ordering company employees to set fire to the peatland concession.

A more controversial verdict came at the end of December, when the Palembang District Court found pulp and paper company PT Bumi Mekar Hijau not guilty of lighting forest fires. State prosecutors failed to specify that state losses had beenincurred, and the fact that acacia trees could be planted on the fire-affected land. This verdict sets a dangerous precedent, unless the Supreme Court annuls it.

With due respect to all the efforts law enforcers have taken to punish perpetrators of forest fires, the losing streak in the court battles is evidence of the absence of a green mindset among our judges. This probably stems from the judges’ limited knowledge and awareness of forest destruction, which is why regular training on environmental protection matters. Internal supervision by the Supreme Court to make sure the judges uphold environmental laws is equally pressing.

Technical knowledge matters too for law enforcers, who are entrusted with carrying out investigations into environmental crimes; in all the latest forest fire cases they have failed to build strong cases able to convince the judges.

As long as our courts deliver such bizarre verdicts, international doubts over our ability to enforce the law against forest burners will linger. It comes as no surprise, too, that the government of Singapore, which has had to bear the brunt of forest fires in Sumatra over the last few years, has asked a local district court to issue an arrest warrant against the director of an Indonesian firm for failing to appear for questioning in connection with the environmental disaster.

In the bigger picture, our failure to bring about justice for millions of forest fire victims, particularly those who have died or fallen sick due to polluted air, underscores the absence of national unity in the fight against environmental crime. Some, if not many, of us appear to have “unfriended”  the environment for personal or collective gain, which blatantly counters our pledge to further curb carbon emissions by, among other measures, preventing forest fires.

We have paid a high price for betraying Mother Nature.

(Asia News Network/The Jakarta Post)
Editorial