Another tragedy in Aceh: Illegal logging

Another tragedy in Aceh: Illegal logging

Contributor to The Jakarta Post Riedo Panaligan is a recipient of
the 2005 Journalism Fellowship Program of the Bangkok-based
Southeast Asian Press Alliance. From Banda Aceh he has filed a
special report on illegal logging in Aceh province, plus related
issues. His report is covers this page and the facing page.

"We heard a big sound and ran away as fast as we could," said
Sahbudin, describing how he and his family in Aceh Tenggara
managed to escape the ravaging mixture of water, mountain rocks
and cut logs that cascaded down Leuser mountains on the night of
April 27, 2005.

The district of Aceh Tenggara is the latest site of flash
floods in Aceh province. Nineteen people are confirmed dead and
more than 100 families from five villages, including Lawe
Mengduku where Sahbudin lives, have been greatly affected. Houses
and farms have been destroyed and logs are everywhere.

According to Sahbudin, he was not surprised why such a
calamity befell their villages. Erosion and flash floods happen
in Aceh Tenggara every year.

Six chiefs of the villages that have been affected by the 2003
flash flood already wrote a letter on May 26, 2004 to then
Governor Abdullah Puteh to act in order to stop logging
activities inside the protected area, but to no avail.

They say unless logging is stopped, disasters will never stop
in Aceh Tenggara.

"It's obvious," said Yashud Hutapea, coordinator of the
Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI) in Aceh Tenggara,
"that rampant logging inside the Leuser Ecosystem is the culprit
of the flash floods."

WALHI already recorded five reports of major landslides and
flash floods in Aceh alone after the tsunami and a total of 143
cases for the province since 2000.

Misery seems reluctant to leave Aceh. Decades-long war,
tsunamis and, lately, rampant illegal logging as a result of
higher demand for raw materials, especially wood, for
reconstruction of tsunami-stricken areas, have taken their toll.

Huge timber demand

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here are sending
warnings to the authorities not to sacrifice too readily the
remaining forests of Indonesia under the guise of rehabilitating
Aceh.

"We must be careful in addressing the situation, or else we
will just invite other disasters to occur," said Bambang
Antariksan from Walhi Aceh.

It is estimated that the minimum wood requirement needed for
the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Aceh, which is foreseen
to last for five years, is 1.1 million cubic meters (m3) of logs,
equivalent to 446,000 m3 of sawn timber. Such a huge timber
requirement will worsen the already sorry state of the forests of
Aceh and nearby provinces.

Logging activities in Aceh are currently concentrated in the
districts of Aceh Besar, Aceh Tenggara, Aceh Singkil and Aceh
Timur, which, coincidentally, are areas where there are
conservation sites or places covered by the Leuser Ecosystem, one
of the richest bastions of tropical rainforest in Southeast Asia.

Aside from Aceh, wood that was used in the emergency and
relief phase for tsunami-stricken areas also came from the
provinces of North Sumatra, Raui and Jambi, which also have
tragic histories of erosion and flash floods.

Indonesia is home to 10 percent of the world's tropical
forests, but it also has the highest rate of deforestation, with
about three million hectares of forest lost every year.

Eden in peril

The Leuser Ecosystem, approximately 2.6 million hectares of
tropical rainforest, is home to some of the most unique wildlife
in the world like endemic species of tigers, elephants and
rhinoceros, orangutans, hornbills, cloud leopards and the world's
largest flower, the rafflesia.

It has nurtured generations of some of Sumatra's major ethnic
groups like the Gayo, Alas, Acehnese, Batak, Pakpak, Karo,
Singkil and Malay. Moreover, some four million people depend
directly on this area as their water source.

Right in the heart of the ecosystem is the Gunung Leuser
National Park, a world heritage site as declared by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). There are also nature parks and wildlife reserves
located within the Ecosystem.

The Leuser Ecosystem is declared a protected forest by the
Indonesian government, but still is one of the most exploited
areas in Southeast Asia.

Due to the proliferation of logging activities during the
1990s, a logging stoppage was imposed in the whole province in
2001. Still, illegal logging continued.

The logging moratorium was lifted on September 2004 by then
governor Abdullah Puteh, who is now in jail for corruption.
However, as early as January 2004, logging permits were issued to
different companies for the utilization of the forests of Aceh.

A total of 47 companies were granted licenses for use and
felling of forest (IPHHKs) by the Aceh forestry office in 2004,
with total target wood production for a year amounting to
116,203.82 m3 or the equivalent of more than 46,000 trees. This
is almost 150 percent higher than the 47,500 m3 legally allowed
capacity during the past years.

Logging lawful, or not?

Based on reports from different journalists and NGOs, there is
virtually no way of knowing which of these logging companies
operating in Aceh is legal or illegal. Permits are not displayed
in public and logging companies have the habit of transferring
their areas of operation from time to time.

Logging activities in Aceh are also being conducted in places
classified as conflict areas. In many instances, media coverage
in these areas is very limited.

According to Husaini Syamaun, Forest Use and Utilization
Division head at the Aceh's forestry office, "Even with permits,
logging activities are only permitted in production and limited
production forests."

"No logging is allowed inside protected forests and
conservation areas," he said. "The government is striving to
attain the vision of becoming a Green Province," he further
stressed.

Of the 47 companies that have been granted an IPHHK, 22 have
expired permits; yet, they continue to operate.

In the district of Aceh Tenggara, where the heart of Gunung
Leuser Natural Park can be found, more than 90 percent of its
forest cover is classified as protected forest. Only 289 hectares
of forest are attributed to production purposes.

Last year, the Aceh forestry office gave 10 private companies
the right to log, with each company operating in a minimum of 100
hectares.

After the tsunami, logging activities seem to be on the rise.
According to Yashud, loggers also tend to justify their actions
as part of the rehabilitation for Aceh.

Even the villagers in Aceh Tenggara attest that trucks that
brought logs or processed wood during the early months after the
tsunami from outside the district have signs like "For the
Rehabilitation of Aceh".

From two trips a week before the tsunami, trucks now make
three to four trips carrying processed wood away from the Aceh
Tenggara district. In one trip, at least five trucks transport 12
m3 to 15 cubic m3 of sawn timber.

"Most of the wood coming out of here is first-class," Yashud
said.

He said tropical hardwood trees like semaram, merbau, kruing
and meranti are favorites of loggers because they peg a very high
price on the international market, around Rp 18 million
(US$1,800) per m3.

"That's why most of the wood here is not really going to
Aceh," said Yashud, "but is being exported illegally outside the
country."

Lucrative business

The logging situation in Aceh Tenggara mirrors the current
situation of the forests in the province generally.

Logging is a very lucrative business in Aceh and benefits
influential individuals and even security personnel.

From the capital town of Kutacane to the border of North
Sumatra, more than three military checkpoints and barracks have
been set up along the main highway of Aceh Tenggara; two or more
large trucks transporting wood in the middle of the night are
therefore hard to miss.

According to the affected villagers of the recent flash flood,
local government staff went to their area days after the flash
flood and facilitated the selection of logs in good condition
littered on the river banks. They were warned not to get the logs
or else they would be prosecuted.

This happened to 11 villagers from Lawe Gerger who tried to
get a few logs and ended up in jail. Their relatives testify that
they are not illegal loggers, just farmers who wanted to get some
logs. Some of them are still in jail.

Aceh Tenggara regent Armen Dusky denied allegations that he
was involved in the illicit business, saying, "I support the
Green Province vision."

He vowed to protect the Leuser Natural Park and would never
tolerate destructive activities inside the protected forest,
unlike what some groups had been portraying about him.

"I also want our forest to be protected," said Armen.

Blind Eye

Illegal logging activities have become more tolerable and
apprehension for such activities has relaxed after the tsunami.

Aceh Police chief Gen. Bachrumsyah Kasman admitted that they
had temporarily stopped their campaign against illegal logging to
give way to the emergency and relief phase for Aceh.

He said that the Vice President Jusuf Kalla had asked him to
take it easy with the apprehension of undocumented transport of
wood because Aceh province needed whatever wood it could get.

The Aceh forestry office still has no working monitoring
scheme to ensure that only companies with a permit will operate
inside areas designated for logging activities.

Even Kuntoro Mangkasubroto, head of the Bureau of
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction for Aceh and Nias Island, is
also resigned to the issue because of the huge timber requirement
needed for the province.

"I don't support illegal logging. Illegal is illegal, period,"
said Kunturo. "But if they give it for free (illegal logs), I
will gladly accept," he said.

Construction of roads going to isolated areas is being pushed
hard, specifically the controversial Ladia Galaska Project. The
project is a series of roads that will connect the western and
northern coasts of Aceh and pass directly through the heart of
the Leuser ecosystem.

The project received major opposition from different sectors
because it will give easier access for logging and lead to the
further degradation of the Leuser Ecosystem.

Just recently, bidding for construction firms was held in
Banda Aceh to build roads that are part of the Ladia Galaska
Project. This shows that the project is still ongoing.

New hope

Currently, different groups are seeking solutions to stop the
degradation of Aceh's natural resources while also answering the
needs of the victims of the tsunami.

Recently, research institution Greenomics Indonesia and
conservation group the World Wildwide Fund for Nature (WWF)
launched the Timber for Aceh Program, which aims to convince
donor countries to donate nontropical timber to Aceh.

It gained local and international support, and no less than
Aceh's acting governor Azwar Abubakar himself is pursuing donor
institutions to donate timber to support the Green Province
vision for Aceh.

Initially, 50 container loads of timber from the United
States, enough to build 1,200 houses, are expected to arrive in
Aceh within this month.

Some sustainable ideas being implemented by different groups
here in Aceh came directly from the victims themselves.

One group, the Muslim Aid Foundation (MAF) is currently
building Acehnese houses for different coastal communities
affected by the tsunami. According to MAF's Aceh Director
Fadlullah Wilmot, the houses they are building are a bit modified
to render them more economically viable and environment-friendly.

Materials are made from sustainable materials. House posts are
made of old coconut trunks, walls of woven bamboo and roofs of
palm or sagu leaves. These houses use wooden joints instead of
nails to ensure better protection against earthquakes.

"Everybody is taking a part in building the houses. Men do the
carpentry while the women and children weave the roofs. They are
working as a family," he said.

"We just asked them and they told us what they want to do,"
said Fadlullah on how they came up with the idea of building such
houses.

For years, Aceh has received more than its share of natural
and manmade disasters.

Whatever the reason, the impact of disasters can only be
minimized, if a community-supported resource management program
is integrated as part of the rehabilitation and reconstruction
program of Aceh.

Otherwise, the greater tragedy of unsustainable reconstruction
and rehabilitation will continue to weigh most heavily on
villagers like Sahbudin who, like all the people of Aceh, just
wants to live happily and in peace.