Freeport cooperates with LIPI and universities to improve environment management

PT Freeport Indonesia (FI) has teamed up with the Institute of Indonesian Sciences (LIPI) and a number of noted universities to undergo the so-called Environmental Risk Assessment Project (ERA) in a bid to minimize Freeport's mining impacts on the environment.

A senior manager at Freeport's Environmental Department, Wisnu Susetyo, said ERA aimed to study and analyze the ecological and health risks of Freeport's mining activities against local people in the surrounding areas.

"The results of the ERA analysis will be used as guidelines for Freeport in its policy to manage the environment in its mining areas," Wisnu said.

Those involve in the ERA project include noted universities such as the University of Indonesia, the Institute of Agriculture Bogor, the Institute of Technology Bandung, the University of Gadjahmada as well as public figures, non-governmental organizations and a number of governmental institutions.

The coordinator of the ERA Panel Review, Retno Sutaryono, said the results of the ERA project would also be submitted to the government, both local and central governments, so that the government policy in the future would also consider environmental and health impacts of mining activities against local people.

Retno said that the results of ERA would also be disseminated to the people around the mining areas so that "the people understand correctly the ecological development in their areas. (*)