Indonesian Businessman Not Guilty In Destruction Of 58,000 Ha Of Virgin Sumatran Forest

[hatrack]

INDONESIA'S climate change credentials are in tatters after a key player in the country's illegal logging business was acquitted of criminal charges over the destruction of 58,000ha of virgin Sumatran forest. Businessman Adelin Lis, the subject of an international manhunt and what Sumatran police called the most comprehensive investigation they have conducted into forest destruction, avoided a 10-year jail sentence and more than 120 billion rupiah ($14.4 million) in fines and reforestation imposts.

Judges at the Medan District Court, in central Sumatra, ruled on Monday that the evidence against Mr Lis was inadequate to prove anything other than "administrative neglect". Environmental protection groups were assessing their next moves yesterday but predicted the world's judgment would be harsh ahead of the UN climate change conference in Bali next month. "This does irreparable damage to Indonesia's forest protection credentials," Rully Syumanda, legal adviser to the peak environment body Walhi, told The Australian.

Mr Lis was arrested in Beijing last year after fleeing charges of illegal logging causing damages to the state estimated at Rp230trillion. The head of forestry firm Majur Timber Group and two related companies, he was charged under anti-corruption laws with failing to pay forestry concession fees and compulsory reforestation funds.

In Riau alone, a single province of Sumatra, police say the damages in all illegal logging cases they have taken through to prosecution stage is Rp1800 trillion, though they admit that is a fraction of the real total. The prosecution success rate is "less than 1 per cent, and that's usually truck drivers and plantation workers", Mr Syumanda said yesterday. "The directors or agents ... are never touched."

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22715010-2703,00.html

[jpak]

1. but..but..but..only biofuels cause deforestation in Indonesia

never mind....