Indonesia Pulp Mill Fuels Ecology Suit : Environmentalists Worry About Effects on Fish and Rain Forests

Executives at the pulp mill here say the dead fish found in nearby waters were put there by saboteurs trying to ruin their business.

Indonesia’s leading environmental group, Walhi, says that fishermen are just one of the groups likely to suffer from the ecological damage caused by the mill and its forestry concessions in this remote area of northern Sumatra.

Walhi will bring its charges to court soon, suing the government for neglecting the environment.

It is a chance, says Walhi, to put teeth into environmental laws and help protect Indonesia’s vast natural heritage, which includes one of the world’s largest remaining rain forests.

For others, the suit is misguided at best and at worst the vehicle, unwitting or not, for foreign interests to sabotage the project for commercial reasons. Some see political motives.

“The attacks are organized, commercially motivated. Foreigners would like to see things differently,” said Polar Tanoto, director of PT Inti Indorayon Utama, which owns the mill.

“The dead fish were a deliberate attempt to ruin this company,” said another company official. He said some of them were sea fish never seen in the waters around nearby Lake Toba, a resort, and that some were even found upstream from the mill.

The $185-million mill, on the bank of the Asahan River, turns trees into pulp for the manufacture of paper and rayon. The mill also has a license to make use of 370,000 acres of forest land.

Senior Walhi official Erna Witoelar said: “The government truly believes that this is all an effort from the Japanese rayon industry to kill the factory.”

The mill will eventually eat into Japanese rayon exports here, said one Indorayon official who asked not to be identified.

Witoelar angrily denies any sinister motives or hidden backing.

“We are handling this case only with consumer and environmental motives,” he said.

Tanoto said two independent studies had been made on the mill project. “There is no hard evidence which they (Walhi) can substantiate,” he said. “We are confident we are doing the right thing.”

Walhi’s lawsuit contends that the government issued licenses without proper environmental studies. It plans to sue Indorayon later over deforestation and pollution.

Indorayon officials say they have spent more than $30 million on waste recycling and environmental protection measures and their forestry operations are carefully managed to ensure no damage to the terrain.

Charges that changes in the forest have damaged rice irrigation are false, says Tanoto.

He says he has proof that a prominent local person intentionally disrupted water supplies while many signatures on a letter of complaint by villagers were forged.

Emil Salim, Minister for Environment and Population, defended his role and the pulp mill itself. “I did not fall short of my tasks,” he told said in an interview in Jakarta.

The effluent standards for Indorayon are designed to ensure that no pollution damage is caused to the electricity turbines further down the Asahan River.

“There will be no environmental problem if they (the discharges) are kept at levels decided by the government,” Salim said.

He added that the eucalyptus trees used for reforestation would improve the environment by helping restore falling water levels in Lake Toba. The pine trees being felled interfere with the natural water catchment system, he said.

Although he thinks the government is in the right this time, Salim said: “For the environment to be protected it is important to have court cases. We are moving to accountability from advocacy. I like to see this to educate people that the environment is important.”