City to crack down on illegal timber

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration hopes to crack down on illegal timber and plywood, which are mostly shipped from Kalimantan and Sumatra to Jakarta.

"Between one and two million cubic meters of forestry products are shipped here from 16 provinces. About 70 percent of it is illegal," the City Economic Office's Sukri Bey said on Friday.

After meeting Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall, he told reporters that they would cooperate with the police, the prosecutor's office and other provinces concerned. They would also place officers in timber processing centers and sea ports to monitor the illegal business.

He said that the illegal forestry products, which was valued at some Rp 260 billion, were smuggled from Kalimantan, Sumatra, Papua, Maluku, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.

He said police and the prosecutor's office had often seized the illegal products and sold them in auctions.

"But it was still unclear where the money from the auctions go. The city administration never received any money," he said.

He suggested that 40 percent of the money derived from the forestry products' auctions should be for the city administration, 40 percent for provinces where the products came from, and the remaining 20 percent for the central government.

"Governor Sutiyoso supported the proposal to fight wood smuggling here," he claimed.

Sukri revealed several timber processing centers, including in Klender and Ujung Menteng, East Jakarta would be closely monitored.

He said the administration would also monitor transportation of the products to sea ports here, including Tanjung Priok, Kali Baru, Sunda Kelapa and Marunda in North Jakarta.

"We will build monitoring posts in the places and re-activate the existing monitoring posts," Sukri said without giving further details on the number of the monitoring posts.

He said some of the logs were processed here before they were transported outside Jakarta, including for export, and domestic needs.

However, he admitted that the security authorities found it difficult to prevent the wood smuggling because the owners were often unknown.

"We also find problems in storing the confiscated products as we do not have enough space," he said.

However, he said, if the suggestion for sharing income from the auctioned logs, could be approved, some of the money could cover the fight against illegal logging.