Jokowi – ICEL

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Three non-governmental organizations or NGO in environmental sector, namely Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), Greenpeace Indonesia, and Indonesian Center of Environmental Law (ICEL), demanded an issue on the cultivation right permit (HGU) recently became public spotlight not be used as a mere political tool between Joko Widodo or Jokowi camp and Prabowo Subianto camp.

The request was issued in response to the statement of Jokowi during the second presidential election debate, saying that his opponent Prabowo owned 220,000 hectares of land in East Kalimantan and 120,000 hectares of land in Central Aceh last Sunday. During the session, Prabowo admitted of controlling plots of state land with a status of HGU.

“This piece of information released by presidential candidate number 01 is an irony, where information that should be made public, and that previously hidden, was disclosed in a debate stage of presidential candidates as an effort to preserve the reign,” said Mufti Barri, manager of campaign and policy intervention of FWI, in a press release today, February 20.

Meanwhile, he opined, the urgency in exposing HGU information; such as solving a social conflict, overlapping permits, and deforestation, was set aside.

ICEL Director Henri Subagiyo supported the revelation of HGU information conveyed by Jokowi. However, he lamented the inconsistency behavior of Jokowi in light of the issue.

Henri pinned hope Prabowo could wisely respond to the matter. Moreover, Prabowo had stated his vision on a more evenly distributed and just management of natural resources (SDA).

“It is impossible to actualize it if people do not have information and control on the HGU permit issuance which is still being closed until today and can be accessed only by some people,” Henri added.

Greenpeace Indonesia also urged the government to publicize all information about HGU so that the public could acknowledge which party has a privilege in controlling plots of land.

“If Jokowi and Prabowo really concern about environment and transparency issue, they should put care and fully support this information disclosure issue on HGU,” said Asep Komarudin, a forest campaigner of Greenpeace Indonesia.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1177770/3-ngos-demand-issue-on-prabowos-hgu-not-used-as-political-tool

Panoramic view of the Grasberg gold and copper mine in Indonesian Papua on the island of New Guinea. (Image by Richard Jones/Flickr ; Mongabay)

The Indonesian government has acquired a majority stake in the operator of the Grasberg mine, one of the world’s biggest copper and gold mines.
The $3.85 billion deal has been lauded as a move toward resource sovereignty, but there’s been little mention of who inherits the massive pollution legacy left from decades of mining waste being dumped in rivers and forests.
Activists are also calling for clarity in how the acquisition will improve the lives of the indigenous Papuan communities living around the mine, as well as end the long-running conflicts pitting them against the mine operator and security forces.

JAKARTA — When the Indonesian government took a controlling stake in the operator of one of the world’s richest gold mines at the end of 2018, proponents hailed the move as a historic step toward national and economic resource sovereignty.

The breathless media coverage of the transaction, which saw the government take a 51 percent stake in PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), previously majority-owned by Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan, framed it as the “return” of a prized asset — the Grasberg gold and copper mine — to the Indonesian public after decades of foreign control.

But little was said about the long legacy of toxic pollution from the mine, or how exactly the new arrangement, at a cost of $3.85 billion to Indonesia, would finally bring real benefits to the indigenous people on whose land the mine sits, and who remain among the most impoverished communities in Indonesia.

Inheriting a pollution problem

Under the terms of the acquisition, a 41.2 percent stake in PTFI goes to state-owned smelting company PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium, better known as Inalum. A 10 percent stake is held by the government of Papua province, where Grasberg is located. That latter stake, in turn, is managed 60:40 between an Inalum-controlled company and a province-owned firm. Freeport remains the operator of the mine.

But along with ownership in one of the most coveted mines on Earth, Inalum and the Papua government have also inherited a pollution problem stemming from the mining waste, or tailings, churned out by PTFI over decades.

“Does the completion of the divestment deal mean that the environmental problems can be resolved? No,” said Merah Johansyah Ismail, national coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), an NGO. Following the takeover, he says, the national and provincial governments will also have to take the brunt of the fallout from the environmental damage caused by the mining operations.