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Envi­ron­men­tal­ists were handed a set back in a dis­pute over a palm oil plan­ta­tion granted in a pro­tected peat swamp that is home to a pop­u­la­tion of crit­i­cally endan­gered orang­utans, reports the Aceh Globe and the Syd­ney Morn­ing Herald.

Tues­day a court in Banda Aceh dis­missed the case on juris­dic­tional grounds, argu­ing that WALHI, the group that brought the case, should have first sought a set­tle­ment with PT Kallista Alam, the palm oil com­pany that is clear­ing the for­est area.

“The Admin­is­tra­tive Court of Banda Aceh has no author­ity to rule on this case. The law­suit is unac­cept­able,” Judge Dar­mawi of Banda Aceh Admin­is­tra­tive Court was quoted as say­ing by the Ache Globe. “The judges gave the oppor­tu­nity for the par­ties to seek set­tle­ment out of court in accor­dance to the law.”

But accord­ing to the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald, WALHI’s lawyer, Kamarud­din, said the judges erred in their deci­sion. An appeal is likely.

The case cen­ters around the legal­ity of a per­mit to con­vert peat for­est in Tripa peat swamp issued last year by Aceh’s then-​Governor Irwandi Yusuf. WALHI says the per­mit vio­lates the pro­tected sta­tus of the area as well as a mora­to­rium on con­ver­sion of “deep” peat areas. The con­ces­sion also seems to under­mine Gov­er­nor Irwandi’s com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing forests in Aceh Province. The gov­er­nor has played a promi­nent role in the Governor’s Cli­mate and For­est Task Force, an ini­tia­tive that has brought together lead­ers from around the world to seek solu­tions to deforestation.

News of the court’s deci­sion comes just days after an inter­na­tional cam­paign by envi­ron­men­tal groups warned that con­ver­sion of Tripa for­est could doom an impor­tant pop­u­la­tion of crit­i­cally endan­gered Suma­tran orang­utans to extinc­tion “within months”.

“Tripa’s pop­u­la­tion of the Crit­i­cally Endan­gered Suma­tran orang­utan (Pongo abelii), could be extinct in a mat­ter of months, even weeks if a pro­longed dry spell were to set in,” said the cam­paign in a peti­tion drive. “The Tripa peat swamp forests in Aceh have long been rec­og­nized as a UNEP/​UNESCO Great Ape Sur­vival Part­ner­ship Pri­or­ity Site for Great Ape Con­ser­va­tion, and in the early 90′s these peat swamp forests are esti­mated to have con­tained between 2,000 and 3,000 Suma­tran orang-​utans. But today, only a few hun­dred sur­vive, and a tip­ping point has now been reached where just one more seri­ous and uncon­trolled fire event could eas­ily wipe out the remain­ing sur­vivors, and all other wildlife species in these forests, many of them also Endan­gered and legally pro­tected under Indone­sian law.”

NASA satel­lite data released late last month showed dozens of fires burn­ing in Tripa. For­est clear­ing has already began in the con­ces­sion area, accord­ing to environmentalists.

The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Mongabay​.com. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.

(Source: Mongabay, 03.04.2012)