Bukit Barisan park deforested

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.