Jakarta (VNA) - The Indonesian government through the Forest and Mining Area Control Task Force (Satgas PKH) has found indications of a number of corporate and individual entities that contribute to the occurrence of floods and landslides in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra, Attorney General ST Burhanuddin said on December 24.
Following up on the findings, the Task Force has requested information from 27 companies spread across the three provinces.
According to Burhanuddin, the results of the PKH Task Force study and the analysis of the ITB Interdisciplinary Research Centre also found a strong correlation that flash floods in Sumatra are not only natural phenomena, but are also triggered by massive land use changes in the upstream of the river basin. This is then exacerbated by high rainfall.
To date, Satgas PKH has recovered around 4 million hectares of forest land and collected 2.3 trillion IDR (137.49 million USD) in administrative fines from 20 palm oil companies and one mining firm. In addition, through the prosecution of corruption cases related to crude palm oil exports and sugar imports, the state has recovered another 4.2 trillion IDR./.
