Bukit Barisan forrest pillaged
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung
Traffic along the highway heading toward Bengkulu and Padang has been relatively light since the afternoon. Only three vehicles have passed in the past three hours because the Sumatra west coast highway is not that popular among bus and truck drivers due to its steep gradients and frequent landslides.
A truck with Lampung registration plate has stalled on a slope between the small towns of Lemong and Krui, due to overheating.
"The load is too heavy," the truck driver grumbles.
The truck is fully laden with freshly sawn timber. It seems to have just recently been loaded because it is not covered with tarpaulin yet. Another truck stopped on the side of the road five kilometers before Krui. Four men were seen loading it with timber, watched over by a man in a police uniform and another in military fatigues.
The scene, the line of trucks parked on the roadsides loading timber, is a common sight in West Lampung regency, Lampung province, which borders the Bukit Barisan National Park (TNBBS).
Besides Lemong and Krui, there are many other timber gathering points in West Lampung. Equipped with chain saws, people from the villages of Cahaya Negeri, Bambang, Bungin, Gunung Terang and Talang Semarang in Way Tenong district here have long regarded the park as their main source of living. Due to the illegal felling of trees, Subhanallah hill in Way Tenong is barren now. The villagers have not only felled trees, but even divided land in the national park into lots.
Local residents fell trees in the forest conservation area. The logs are left on the roadsides waiting to be transported by trucks. The illegal logs are stored in Kebun Tebu and Sukapura villages in Sumberjaya district so as not to look too conspicuous.
The residents are eager to plunder the forest as they are well paid by timber hoarders and traders. So are a number of skilled workers from outside the area who are paid between Rp 200,000 (US$22.00) to Rp 250,000 per cubic meter of sawn timber.
Hairudin, a logger at the Register 45 B area in Balik Rigis for example, said that he was employed by a hoarder named Ujang. The Way Tenong resident is aided by an assistant to cut trees using a chain saw. Loggers usually stay in the forests for a week and keep moving to locations where there are large trees. If the weather is clear, they can number between five to eight groups.
They mainly fell tenam, meranti, cemara and medang trees, that reach a diameter equivalent to between six and eight adults arms length. They can fell and saw one tree into beams or rafters, four to six cubic meters in volume daily.
Executive director of the Lampung chapter of Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Mukri Friatna, said that the state lost trillions of rupiah every month from the illegal sale of meranti timber due to its high price of between Rp 750,000 to Rp 1 million per cubic meter.
According to Mukri, if an average 15 million cubic meters of meranti is sent to Java each month, it would mean that the state incurred a loss of Rp 15 trillion each month.
Head of the Bukit Barisan National Park, Tamen Sitorus, acknowledged that his office had made serious efforts to curb illegal logging, but cited the park was understaffed to patrol the park continually.
"We have only 67 forest rangers. They have to protect 360,000 hectares stretching across West Lampung, Tanggamus and Bengkulu province," said Tamen.
He said that ideally, the park should be manned by 720 forest rangers, so that every 500 hectares is guarded by a forest ranger.