Govt team to visit Gag Island mid-December

A team from the ministry of forestry will visit the Gag Island in Papua province in the middle of this month to make a survey which would be used by the government as a basis to decide on the status of the local forest as well as the fate of BHP Billiton?s US$1.2 billion nickel mining project in the area, the Bisnis Indonesia daily reported Wednesday.

The paper quoted operational manager of nickel mining firm PT Gag Nikel Warwick Alliston as saying that the company expected to be able to resume its mining activity in the island which was halted after the government turned the status of the local forest into a protected forest area from the previous production forest area.

Gag Nikel, which is 75 percent controlled by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton and 25 percent the state-owned miner PT Aneka Tambang, was in the process of a mining survey stage area when the government turned it into a protected forest.

According to Law No. 41 on forestry, which was enacted in Sept. 1999, open-pit mining is not allowed in protected forest. Gag was granted contract of work in 1998 for the mining site.

BHP has been requesting the government to revise again status of the forest in the Gag Island into another form of land status which allows open pit mining.(*)