Indonesian officials said a task force has seized plots spanning hundreds of acres from PT Weda Bay Nickel and PT Tonia Mitra Sejahtera for lack of relevant forestry permits, reported Reuters.
A 148-hectare (366-acre) area at Weda Bay Nickel’s concession has been seized due to the lack of a forestry licence needed to exploit the plot. “They have the mining permit, but they don’t have the borrow-to-use permit for the forest,” mining ministry official Rilke Jeffri Huwae said.
The seized plot was a rock quarry for construction material and did not cover the mining extraction site, Eramet Indonesia said, adding that it did not expect a significant impact on Weda Bay’s operation. Weda Bay is controlled by China’s Tsingshan Holding Group, France’s Eramet SA and Indonesia’s Aneka Tambang, and spans 45,000 hectares (111,000 acres) on the island of Halmahera.
The task force has also seized an area of 173 hectares (427 acres) managed by Tonia Mitra Sejahtera in Southeast Sulawesi, said Febrie Adriansyah, a senior prosecutor at the attorney general’s office. Tonia’s mining permit covers nearly 5,900 hectares (14,580 acres), noted Reuters.
The task force has identified a total of 4.2 million hectares (10 million acres), managed by 51 companies, as lacking proper forestry permits, he added.
Source: Reuters