A district court in Riau, Indonesia sentenced a Malaysian plantation firm manager to a year in prison and a fine of IDR2 billion (RM540,000) on Tuesday for not preventing forest fires on his company’s estate last June.
The Pelawan court also slapped ADEI Plantation, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Kepong, with a IDR1.5 billion (RM405,000) fine, and ordered it to pay a further IDR15 billion (RM4.05 million) to repair the environmental damage caused.
“The defendant was negligent in his supervisory role over the estate. He should have actively prevented irresponsible parties from slipping into the estate and setting the fires,” judge Donovan Kusumo Bhuwono said in his judgement, as reported by Singapore’s Straits Times.
The Indonesian government has been cracking down on environmental offences after forest fires in Riau have been attributed to last year’s severe haze. Jakarta has been under pressure to act from local residents, environmental groups and neighbouring countries.
Ironically, Malaysia, the originating country of the offending company, was also hard hit by haze likely caused in part by forest fires in Riau last year and earlier this year.
