Home Complaints database Community Network Concerned for the Kendeng Mountains vs. HeidelbergCement
Complaint

Community Network Concerned for the Kendeng Mountains vs. HeidelbergCement

HeidelbergCement mine & factory threaten Indigenous Samin

Date filed
9 September 2020
Keywords
Countries of harm
Current status
Withdrawn
Sector
NCP

Allegations

On 9 September 2020, Jaringan Masyarakat Peduli Pegunungan Kendeng (Community Network Concerned for the Kendeng Mountains), supported by Inclusive Development International and FIAN Germany, filed a complaint on behalf of local  communities in Central Java, Indonesia against HeidelbergCement with the German NCP. The complaint alleges that Heidelberg’s plans to build a limestone mine and cement factory on the lands of local Indigenous Samin communities would threaten their water, livelihoods, and sacred sites. The complainants cite an Indonesian geologist who asserts that at least 35,000 people from three sub-districts (Sukolilo, Kayen, and Tambakromo) could lose their access to vital water resources for subsistence and agriculture due to mining the Kendeng karst area. A 2017 special impact assessment by the Indonesian Presidential Office and Ministry of Environment and Forestry confirms many of the communities’ fears. It states that mining in Kendeng would cost local families their means of subsistence through the destruction of vital supplies of water for both farming and drinking. The same report details how mining in the area would have severe impacts on the local ecosystem, including destroying the habitats of rare species of plants and animals.

Local communities reject the project and have refused to give their free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) to any mining on their territory. Concerned people in Indonesia and Germany have held public demonstrations against the project. Indonesian advocates have also challenged the legality of the company’s operating license in Indonesian courts.

This NCP complaint follows a complaint to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman filed in July 2020 against a financial intermediary supporting the project, rejected on grounds that the IFC had cut its ties to HeidelbergCement’s financier Raifeissen Bank before the filing date.

Relevant OECD Guidelines

Outcome

The NCP partially accepted the complaint in its (unpublished) initial assessment. It concluded that the issues raised regarding disclosure, individual human rights, the environmental impact assessment, and stakeholder engagement merited further examination, but not the issues regarding collective human rights of the Samin because the complainant was not authorised to assert those rights. The NCP’s initial assessment was also translated into Bahasa Indonesia. Both parties later accepted the NCP’s offer of good offices.

Meetings between the parties took place in July and September 2022. However, no agreement could be reached with regard to confidentiality. According to the NCP, the complainants couldn’t accept the proposed confidentiality conditions as this would put them at risk of losing the trust of local community members, and the company needed to have certain safeguards in place to create a safe space for further discussion, at least for a certain period of time. In December 2022, the complainants withdrew the complaint because “agreeing to confidentiality on this basis would risk creating conflict and division within the affected community, as well as risk losing the trust of the people they represent. These risks were too high in the opinion of the Complainants.”

On 4 January 2024, the German NCP published its final statement. On the issue of confidentiality, the NCP stated that “a certain degree of confidentiality, at least for a certain period of time, as necessary for a successful mediation while acknowledging that the parties need to reconnect to the people they represent to guarantee their negotiating mandate. The implementation of safeguards, at least temporarily, could be helpful in order to ensure that not all information is shared with the general public.”

The NCP made several recommendations to the company, including to make the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and other relevant project-related information available to the complainants. Doing so could help to build trust between the parties and thus foster a constructive way forward regarding the future of said project.

The NCP will follow-up on its recommendations six months after the publication of the final statement.

More details

Defendant
Company in violation
Complainants
Affected people
Date rejected / concluded
4 January 2024

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