News sections
  • Rainforests
  • Oceans
  • Animals
  • Environment
  • Business
  • Solutions
  • For Kids
  • DONATE
  • Impact
  • More
    Language
  • English
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Français (French)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Brasil (Portuguese)
  • India (हिंदी)

Video: Meet Indonesia’s go-to expert witness against haze-causing plantation firms

by Philip Jacobson on 23 April 2019

Mongabay Series: Indonesian Forests, Indonesian Palm Oil, Jokowi Commitments

  • Bambang Hero Sahajaro is the Indonesian government’s chief expert witness against plantation firms accused of causing wildfires.
  • Last year, Bambang was sued by a company whose practices he testified against in court. The lawsuit against him was eventually thrown out, though observers say it is part of a trend of companies fighting back against their prosecution by trying to silence environmental defenders.
  • “I won’t back off, not even one step, because there are already many cases waiting for me,” he told Mongabay. “I will keep fighting for the people’s constitutional right to a healthy environment.”

Helping the Indonesian government prosecute companies accused of environmental crimes is a risky job.

Last year, Bambang Hero Saharjo, the Indonesian environment ministry’s chief expert witness against plantation companies accused of setting fires or allowing them to spread, was sued by a palm oil firm, PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa, for millions of dollars after he testified against its practices in court.

An expert in fire forensics from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), Bambang was the second environmental expert to be hit with such a lawsuit. His IPB colleague, Basuki Wasis, was sued by a mining company that was also convicted of illegally damaging the environment. The lawsuits against both men were eventually thrown out, though some observers say they are part of a larger trend of companies fighting back against their prosecution by trying to silence environmental defenders.

But if the case was a sign of the dangers in his profession, Bambang wasn’t worried.

“I won’t back off, not even one step, because there are already many cases waiting for me,” he told Mongabay. “I will keep fighting for the people’s constitutional right to a healthy environment. We can’t afford to be afraid in the face of lawsuit threats like those from JJP.”

In the past two decades, Bambang has handled hundreds of cases for the Indonesian government, which is trying to clamp down on the annual wildfires that burn across the country’s desiccated peatlands.

These vast peat swamp zones have been widely drained and dried by palm oil and paper firms, rendering them highly combustible. Meanwhile, companies, farmers and land speculators have a habit of using fire to clear land. The practice is generally illegal in Indonesia, though it is also the cheapest method.

Indonesia is one of the world’s top carbon polluters, mostly due to emissions from rainforest and peatland clearance in addition to the annual fires. The burning in 2015 was especially destructive, razing an area the size of Vermont, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere during a four-month period than the entire EU, and sickening hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and neighboring countries.

“The law says every citizen has the right to a good environment,” Bambang says. “With the recent fires, especially in 2015, a lot of people died from the smoke. There was a case in Riau of a father whose child died in his arms. An examination later showed the child died from a lack of oxygen. So we need to fight for this right.”

Watch our short film about Bambang Hero Saharjo to learn more about how he investigates companies in the field, his experience dealing with the lawsuit against him, and why he chooses to work for the government instead of the more lucrative work of testifying on behalf of the companies themselves.

Banner: Bambang at a press conference in Jakarta. Image courtesy of the Indonesian environment ministry.

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

Article published by Philip Jacobson
Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Environment, Environmental Crime, Environmental Policy, Featured, Fires, Forest Fires, Governance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Haze, Law Enforcement, Peatlands, Southeast Asian Haze

Print button
PRINT

Special series

Forest Trackers

  • Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
  • Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
  • As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
  • In a Bolivian protected area torn up for gold, focus is on limiting damage
Forest Trackers
More articles

Oceans

  • As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
  • Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
  • Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
  • Illegal trawling ravages Tunisian seagrass meadows crucial for fish
Oceans
More articles

Amazon Conservation

  • Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
  • World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
  • A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
  • Second chance for Lula as controversial Amazon dam goes up for renewal
Amazon Conservation
More articles

Land rights and extractives

  • Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
  • Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
  • Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
  • Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Land rights and extractives
More articles

Endangered Environmentalists

  • Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
  • ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
  • Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
  • ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Endangered Environmentalists
More articles

Indonesia's Forest Guardians

  • Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
  • After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
  • Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
  • A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
More articles

Conservation Effectiveness

  • Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
  • Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
  • From scarcity to abundance: The secret of the ‘peace farmers’ of Colombia
  • For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
Conservation Effectiveness
More articles

Southeast Asian infrastructure

  • Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
  • Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
  • To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
  • Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
Southeast Asian infrastructure
More articles

About Mongabay

Mongabay is a U.S.-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform. Our EIN or tax ID is 45-3714703.

Information

  • Mongabay.org
  • Tropical Forest Network
  • Wild Madagascar
  • Selva Tropicales
  • Mongabay Indonesia
  • Mongabay India

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Information

  • About Mongabay
  • Submissions
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright & Terms of Use

© 2023 Copyright Conservation news

you're currently offline