15,000 squatter families destroying forest

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Kotaagung, Lampung

Some 30,270 hectares of forest out of a total of 360,000 hectares in the South Bukit Barisan National Park (TNBBS) have been devastated by illegal logging.

At least 15,117 families have been squatting in the forest and clearing the land for the last few years. After the all the trees have been felled, the squatters plant crops of coffee, pepper, rice and cocoa.

Park director Tamen Sitorus said logging had in fact began as far back as 1952, but had greatly intensified since 1998.

No money was ever provided by the provincial government to deal with the illegal logging and land clearance, he said. Besides the illegal logging, a great deal of damage had also been inflicted on the park by a number of timber companies that had been granted concessions in 1974.

The companies, with headquarters in Jakarta, were given forest concessions in Bengkunat, West Lampung, and in Way Nipah, Tanggamus regency. "It's not just the lack of facilities and money. We have only one vehicle capable of being used to patrol the forest, and a few old vehicles that can't climb the hills anymore," Tamen said in Kotaagung, Tanggamus, on Friday.

The lack of funds has curtailed the activities of the park administration, which has only 67 staff members.

"Actually, there are only 60 staff members. We have trained them to protect the forest from poachers and illegal loggers. The remaining seven park staff we consider as forest rangers," he said.

According to Tamen, ideally there should be one ranger for every 500 hectares. Thus, with around 360,000 hectares in the park, there should be 720 rangers.

"As we suffer from a shortage of manpower, it's commonplace for the illegal loggers to play cat and mouse with the rangers," he said.

During a discussion in Jakarta last week, Greenomics Indonesia stated that up until 2000 alone, 90,000 hectares, or about 25 percent of the total area of the park in Lampung and Bengkulu provinces, had been damaged.

Imam Paranginangin from Greenomics said that the high rate of transmigration to these provinces posed a major threat to the national park.

Greenomics estimated that if the problem is not quickly resolved, by 2020 more than half of the park will have been occupied by squatters and cleared for agriculture.

Meanwhile, Watoni Nurdin from the Lampung Forest Conservation Consortium (K2HL) said that the percentage area of the park that had been destroyed now stood at 60 percent, or 210,000 hectares.

"This is based on satellite images. So the figure of 10 or 30 percent is rather small," he said.

According to Watoni, to end logging there would need to be good faith on the part of the provincial government, forestry office, and the police and military.

"Because, it's an open secret that the destruction of the park is not only due to land clearing by squatters for farming but also by illegal logging backed by police and military personnel," said Watoni.

Greenomics Indonesia's analysis revealed that at the present time more than a quarter of the river basins whose rivers originate in the park are been exploited for non-irrigated agriculture -- a figure that has the potential to expand in the future as the population increases.

Currently, two hydro power stations rely on water supplies from the park -- the Way Besai hydro plant with a maximum output of 90 megawatts in West Lampung and the Batutegi hydro plant in Tanggamus regency.

The park extends to some 356,800 hectares in area and straddles Lampung province (West Lampung and South Tanggamus regencies) and Southern Bengkulu province, where at least 23 large rivers and hundreds of tributaries have their sources.

It was inaugurated on Oct. 14, 1982, and is a nature resource conservation area with a wide variety of flora and fauna species.

Its ecosystem is unique, consisting as it does of coastal areas, and lowland and highland forests.

There are at least four protected species of flora: the Rafflesia flower (Rafflesia sp), and the Amorpophelus decussilvae, A. Titanium and Grammatopyhylum speciosum orchids.

Almost every animal species in Sumatra can be found in the park, including the rare two-horned rhinoceros, which is nearly extinct, and the Sumatran elephant.