Arya News - The lawsuit seeks a court order to force the government to declare a national disaster status, which will enable greater financial assistance, arguing that the ongoing fires have overwhelmed provincial capacity.
JAKARTA – Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan have sued the central government and local administrations, accusing them of deliberate negligence for failing to prevent and properly handle the widespread wildfires paralyzing the province.
The class action lawsuit was filed on Sept. 17 at the Pontianak District Court by a coalition of civil groups under the banner of “Nafas Kalimantan Barat” (the breath of West Kalimantan). The plaintiffs include the West Kalimantan chapter of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), environmental group Laman Puyung Indonesia, a local Catholic youth group and activist Sisilius Rami.
According to Glorio Sanen, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, the spillover effects of peatland and forest fires across the province have continued to threaten public health and damage the environment until today on a scale that should have been given a greater intervention.
“Meanwhile, our assessment concludes that there has been no sufficient coordination between the central government, ministries and even local administrations to prevent and respond to the disaster in West Kalimantan,” Glorio told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
The lawsuit was filed against President Prabowo Subianto, Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, West Kalimantan Governor Ria Norsan, several ministers and state agency heads, as well as 12 regents and two mayors across the province.
The lawsuit seeks a court order to force the government to declare a national disaster status, which will enable greater financial assistance, arguing that the ongoing fires have overwhelmed provincial capacity.
West Kalimantan has become the major fire hot spot in the country, with fires scorching nearly 40,000 hectares of forest and peatland between January and July, according to data from the Forestry Ministry.
The province also has also seen a sharp influx in respiratory-related visits to emergency rooms since July. As of August, more than 160,000 people across West Kalimantan had suffered from respiratory illness.
On Sunday afternoon, most air monitoring stations in West Kalimantan recorded hazardous levels of pollutants.
“Meawnhile, the haze continues to blanket indigenous villages, whose residents suffer the most though they contribute to the fires the least,” AMAN West Kalimantan head Tono said on Sunday.
The lawsuit also seeks better state monitoring on concession holders, particularly those whose plantations and mines are located inside drained peatland ecosystems, as the majority of fire hot spots in Kalimantan reportedly were detected inside palm oil, pulpwood and mining holdings.
The plaintiffs further accused the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) of failing to launch quick firefighting efforts in the province, which they also blamed on a poorly allocated budget for disaster mitigation and prevention.
BNPB head Gen. Suharyanto told the Post on Sunday that he respected the legal proceedings, though he could not provide any comment yet as the agency had not received an official court notification on the lawsuit.
The first hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7 in Pontianak.
Months of forest and peatland burning in Indonesia have caused haze to travel as far as the Philippines and forced Malaysia to briefly declare an emergency status in early September in Sarawak’s Serian town, which borders West Kalimantan.
Prabowo said on Friday that he would receive assistance from Malaysia, which has offered three helicopters, an aircraft and 52 personnel to help extinguish the forest fires.
The Foreign Ministry has also maintained its compliance with the ASEAN framework on cross-border haze known as the Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution following a region-wide fire alert enacted late August. The alert mandates member states to submit daily reports detailing fire activity data and firefighting responses.