'1,000 trucks with RI illegal logs go to Malaysia each week'
'1,000 trucks with RI illegal logs go to Malaysia each week'
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Kalimantan loses at least 1,000 truck loads of illegal logs every
week or about 10,000 cubic meters in the last two months, says a
forest ministry official.
"Those trucks are certainly carrying logs from our national
parks including Betung Kerihun National Park on the border of
Indonesia and Malaysia. The trucks easily pass through our
country's check points to Malaysia," Koes Saparjadi told
reporters here over the weekend.
The director general for forest protection and conservation at
the Ministry of Forestry said on Friday that the ministry could
not confiscate the trucks as it only had the authority to arrest
them within the forest.
The smuggling causes millions of dollars in losses to the
government, Koes said.
He said the illegal logs were mainly those locally known
Meranti logs and estimated the losses caused would amount to Rp 1
billion (US$117,000) per week.
Koes said if his ministry failed to stop the trucks within the
national parks, tax and customs office and the immigration office
had the authority to stop and detain them as they crossed the
border.
Malaysia has seemingly not taken any measures against the
truck owners, who are Malaysians, he said.
The only thing he would be able to do because of the legal
limitations, he said, was to increase monitoring against illegal
loggers while they were still in the country's forested areas.
Some of the ministry's forest rangers have acquired
supernatural powers that enable them to detect illegal loggers
who are said to be able to make themselves disappear using black
magic, he added.
Illegal logging in Indonesia's rain forests and national parks
has been a major headache especially after the deterioration of
law and order when the Asian economic crisis hit the country in
mid 1997.
Some 43 million hectares of its 120.35 million hectares of
forest have been devastated by illegal logging, with a
degradation rate of 2.1 million hectares per year.
The illicit activities have inflicted losses of Rp 30 trillion
per year to the country, more than enough to subsidize fuel
prices.
The fuel compensation funds for this year stood only at Rp 4.4
trillion.
A report last year said that Malaysia, China and Japan were
the top three recipients of Indonesia's illegal logs.
The Ministry of Forestry has said that the illegal loggers had
formed mafia-like international networks in Indonesia and that
their operations were hard to track down.
Illegal loggers could face a maximum sentence of 10 years
imprisonment and a fine of Rp 200 million as stipulated by the
1990 Law on Conservation.
Koes went on to say that this week, ministry officials would
leave for South Korea to talk about a possible agreement to
prevent illegal logs from Indonesia from entering South Korea.
Last year, the government signed an agreement with Malaysia,
whose plywood industry is said to rely on illegal logs from
Indonesia.
The government has also signed an agreement with the United
Kingdom and the European Union to boost efforts to protect the
forests and curb illegal logging activities.