Ruling on mining draws mixed reactions

The Constitutional Court?s decision on Thursday allowing mining firms to continue operation in protected forests has won praise from the government and mining players but upset environmental activists.

?We welcome the decision. We have to be consistent in developing mines in an environmentally sound way and exploiting mineral resources for the maximum benefits of the people,? Director General of Mineral Resources at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Simon Felix Sembiring said on Thursday.

The ministry?s coal director Mahyudin Lubis said he ?very positively? welcome the decision, noting that it would boost investors? confidence in Indonesia as they saw that the Indonesian government respected the contacts that it had signed.

Mining players joined the chorus of praising the Constitutional Court?s ruling.

?The decision has sent a good signal about investment certainties, particularly for mining investors, in Indonesia,? Anang Rizkani Noor, the vice president of PT Rio Tinto Indonesia, the Indonesian subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto, told Petromindo.Com.

The Constitutional Court upheld on Thursday a presidential decree allowing 13 mining firms to continue operating in protected forests. The firms include mining giants such as U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold and Canada-based Inco Ltd.

The firms had signed contracts with the government to explore and explore mining resources in their contract areas before the government issued the Forestry Law of 1999, which bans open-pit mining in protected forests. The government later declared parts of their concession as protected forests and thus disallowed them to operate open-pit mining activities in the area.

After years-long debate among the House of Representatives, government, environmental activists and industry players, the administration of President Megawati Soekarnoputri issued in 2004 a presidential decree allowing the 13 firms to continue their operation. Later, the House amended the forestry law in line with the presidential decree.

Angry environmental activists then lodged a petition for the Constitutional Court to review the amended forestry law.

The Court?s decision has angered environmentalists.

?For me it is an education that for our leaders in Indonesia, sustainable development is not yet on the radar screen,? Emil Salim, a former minister of environment, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

?Of course it is an age of trade-off between mining and forests? but protected forest is vital for water, the prevention of flood, prevention of erosion and so on,? he said. (Godang)