Bengkulu closed to new plantations

Sunday, April 11, 2010
Bengkulu (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) said Bengkulu province was now closed to new big-scale plantations because there was no longer land space available.

"Bengkulu province, with 1.9 million hectares of land, 900 thousand hectares of forest and a population number of 1.7 million, is now running short of land spaces," Walhi`s campaign affairs coordinator for Bengkulu, Firmansyah said here over the weekend.

Firmansyah said that with a population of 1.7 million, Bengkulu could not share one hectare for each of its people. This condition makes Bengkulu unable to open more land for new big plantations if it does not want to remove its own locals.

However, the local government of Kaur district is planning to provide 14,400 hectares to a new oil palm plantation company, PT Desaria Plantation Mining.

"This is threatening the existence of the locals in eight subdistricts of Kaur district," Firmansyah said.(*)