Bukit Barisan park deforested
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandar Lampung
Sixty percent of the some 350,000 hectares that make up the Bukit Barisan National Park in Lampung have been badly damaged by rampant illegal logging over the past ten years.
When The Jakarta Post, together with a team from the Lampung Anticorruption Committee, recently traveled along the routes used by the illegal loggers, dozens of trucks were seen freely entering and leaving the protected forest almost every day, right under the noses of the local security authorities.
The trucks were transporting logs illegally felled in the protected forest. They also collected logs stacked along the sides of the roads in villages near the forest
Residents of Cahaya Negri and Bungin villages in West Lampung admitted that they earned their livelihoods by looting timber from the forest.
It not only people in the western part of the park who are encroaching into the protected forest, but people on all sides.
The villagers of Belalau and Air Dingin districts control the southern side, while the villagers in Pancur district control the northern side, including Selingkuh Mountain, and the Benatan and Remas Hills.
Hairuddin, a local resident in Balik Rigis village, said local people sold their logs to a middleman named Ujang at between Rp 200,000 and Rp 250,000 per cubic meter.
He added that his group paid Rp 5,000 per log to locals hired to drag logs from the felling sites to the pooling sites where they were collected by the trucks.
The looters also paid between Rp 300,000 and Rp 800,000 per month to local forest rangers.
The logs were usually transported by truck at night to Bandarlampung, the capital of the province, under escort from local police.
Ujang, a buyer of illegal logs in Bandarlampung, was reported to pay Rp 750,000 to the police for every consignment of logs escorted to the city.
The truck drivers are also used to paying fixed amounts of money to security personnel at checkpoints along the highway so that their trucks are not checked.
Because of such illegal charges, the price of logs in Bandar Lampung rises to Rp 900,000 per cubic meter.
The widespread illegal logging has created large, denuded areas in some parts of the park. Villagers make use of these cleared areas to grow coffee. And, again, the local forest ranger unit closes its eyes to the agricultural activities in the protected park.
West Lampung Police chief Sr. Adj. Comr. Rachmat Fudail admitted he had difficulties in cracking down on the illegal logging syndicates as they were well-organized and involved local police officers.
"But, there are indications that the greater part of the logs supplied to Bandar Lampung are looted from the Bukit Barisan and Kerinci Seblat National Parks," he admitted.