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12 Companies Suspected of Driving Forest and Land Fires in Kalimantan
🇮🇩 Indonesia /Environment & Climate

12 Companies Suspected of Driving Forest and Land Fires in Kalimantan

From CNN Indonesia · () Indonesian

Translated from Indonesian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Official statement Under investigation
  • Indonesia’s Environment Ministry said 19 companies in Sumatra and Kalimantan may be held responsible for forest and land fires, including 12 in Kalimantan.
  • The fires covered about 11,046.69 hectares overall, while officials continue verifying whether company land burned accidentally or was deliberately cleared by fire.
  • Authorities are pursuing administrative, civil and criminal enforcement and estimate potential environmental losses since 2023 at 5.3 trillion rupiah.

Indonesia’s environmental authorities are examining 19 companies after forest and land fires spread across Sumatra and Kalimantan, with 12 of the companies located in Kalimantan.

Rizal Irawan, deputy for law enforcement at the Environment Ministry and Environmental Control Agency, said the fires had affected about 11,046.69 hectares nationwide. The 12 companies in Kalimantan include seven in West Kalimantan, where 2,260.08 hectares burned, three in South Kalimantan, linked to 6,595.15 hectares, and two in Central Kalimantan, linked to 99.40 hectares.

In Sumatra, officials identified four companies in South Sumatra, with 772.72 hectares affected, one in Lampung, with 202.73 hectares, and one in Riau, with about 7.10 hectares.

We are still conducting verification and field investigations. What is certain is that there are burned areas at these 19 companies. We will examine whether the land burned or was deliberately burned. We must distinguish between companies that burned the land and land that caught fire.

— Rizal IrawanThe environmental enforcement official described the investigation into the companies’ possible responsibility for the fires.

Rizal said investigators were still verifying conditions in the field. The inquiry will determine whether the land caught fire or was deliberately burned, he said, stressing that authorities must distinguish between companies that started fires and land that burned for another reason.

The ministry is using three enforcement channels: administrative sanctions, environmental disputes or civil lawsuits, and criminal proceedings handled by the Indonesian police. Since January, officials have taken supervisory action against the 19 companies in seven provinces, including installing monitoring signs, sealing sites and conducting other inspections.

Rizal said 32 cases from 2023 to 2025 remain unresolved, with potential environmental losses estimated at 5.30 trillion rupiah. The companies’ responsibility has not yet been established.

From 2023 to 2025, there are 32 unresolved cases in total, with potential environmental losses of 5.30 trillion rupiah.

— Rizal IrawanHe gave the ministry’s estimate for unresolved fire cases and potential environmental damage.
About this summary

Originally published by CNN Indonesia in Indonesian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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