SINGAPORE - One of the companies named by Indonesia’s Senior Presidential Aide Kuntoro Mangkusubroto as among several responsible for a majority of fire hotspots in Riau Province, Asia Pacific Resources International Limited, has issued its rebuttal.
In a statement released to the media, Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) said Indonesia’s accusation requires verification. That is because statements by the Indonesian side do not correspond with intensive monitoring on-the-ground conducted by it in its own concessions over the past several weeks.
They also do not correspond with the information yesterday (June 22) from Indonesia’s official national body for meteorology, climate and geophysics (BKMG), which identified 13 hotspots in Riau, none of which are on APRIL’s concessions.
The company added that on Thursday, the director general of forest protection and nature conservation of the Ministry of Forestry Sonny Partono had stated that assessments by the ministry clearly indicated fire hot spots were primarily occurring outside of concession areas licensed to large companies.
Another official, the director general of the Ministry of Forestry, Bambang Hendroyono, confirmed yesterday that fires causing haze were mostly occurring on community land, not forestry concessions.
He highlighted that large concession holders had no reason to conduct burning on their land because it was prohibited by law and would damage their commercial interests.
APRIL has maintained that it has a strict no-burn policy in its concessions since commencing operations in 1994, and continues to monitor its concessions daily, deploying land patrols and aerial surveillance.
APRIL also actively deploys its fire fighting resources to assist government and communities in fighting fires outside its concession areas.
It said while there has been a small number of fires within APRIL’s concessions over the past three weeks, all those fires were spread from fires that began outside its concessions and were all quickly extinguished by fire fighting teams. CHANNEL NEWSASIA
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