Ministry begins law enforcement phase against major APRIL supplier

 As June entered its fourth week, Indonesia's Ministry of the Environment and Forestry began the law enforcement phase with respect to the harvesting carried out by one of APRIL’s major suppliers, PT SRL, in acacia-planted blocks while the company’s permit suspension was still in effect. PT SRL’s permit was suspended by the Environment and Forestry Minister in mid-November 2015 after serious peat fires had occurred in its concession, for which the company, as the concession holder, was deemed legally responsible. However, from January to March 2016, during which time the permit suspension was still in force, the APRIL supplier continued to conduct on-the-ground operations, as proved by a spatial analysis performed by the ministry which showed that the concession’s acacia-planted blocks were still being harvested. Even though at the end of March 2016 the PT SRL permit suspension was lifted, one of the conditions of its lifting was that the APRIL supplier had not violated the terms of its permit suspension while it was in effect.
The harvesting of acacia plantation blocks while the permit suspension was in effect did in fact constitute a flagrant administrative violation which brought with it the potential for the concession permit to be revoked.
“This forms part of the law enforcement supervision being undertaken by our ministry,” said the Director General of Law Enforcement at the ministry in a statement received by foresthints.news at the end of June. This was after the management of PT SRL had been issued with a summons asking them to clarify the nature of the harvesting operations taking place in their concession while their permit was still under suspension.
In the past, APRIL has declared that the harvesting operations carried out in the acacia-planted blocks belonging to its supplier constituted'unauthorized activity'. However, several NGOs poured scorn on this explanation, claiming it made no sense at all. 
The legal action is based on the fact that the Environment and Forestry Ministry decree suspending PT SRL’s permit explicitly stated that if any on-the-ground operations were discovered during the permit suspension period, the permit of the APRIL supplier could be completely revoked.
This whole case, in fact, goes back to last year's massive forest and land fires, a significant portion of which took place in peatland areas, which caused huge economic losses to Indonesia, to the tune of USD 16.1 billion according to World Bank calculations.