Corruption, no coordination benefit illegal loggers

Corruption, no coordination benefit illegal loggers

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

Thousands of cubic meters of illegally cut trees are still
scattered around deep inside the jungle of South Bukit Barisan
National Park in Lampung province.

The illegal loggers who cut the trees have been arrested, but
local officials have been having difficulty figuring out what to
do with the timber, let alone how to access it all.

A top military officer said carrying logs into a "safer place"
was expensive as the logs were deep in the jungle, dozens of
kilometers from any roads. It has been estimated that it could
cost Rp 200,000 per meter cubic just to take logs out of the
jungle, said chief of the West Lampung military command Lt. Col.
Albar Hasan Tanjung.

Albar said he had made a proposal to the West Lampung regency
administration, where the forest is located, to allocate budget
money for the military to retrieve the timber, but there had been
no response thus far from regency officials.

The military officer said he was perturbed that the government
had ignored the military's proposal to "save the logs".

"The veil of ignorance has also discouraged the military,
which has been working with the national park management in
combating illegal loggers for the past six months," said the
officer.

Albar added that despite the regular operations to halt
illegal logging, tree felling was still rampant in the national
park, which is located in both West Lampung and Tanggamus
regencies. The illegal loggers are said to be well-organized and
have become adept at avoid arrest.

"They even have fairly sophisticated two-way radios that can
penetrate blank areas, to facilitate coordination and
communication. In contrast, we don't have any device that can
penetrate areas that are not covered by the cellular telephone
network," lamented Albar.

However, an environmental activist, Mukri Priatna, blamed a
lack of coordination among the military, police and
administration officials for the rampant illegal logging.

He urged the three institutions to plan anti-illegal logging
operations together so that through concerted efforts they could
be more effective in stopping the illegal loggers.

Separately, chief of the South Bukit Barisan National Park
management group, Tamen Sitorus, explained that many security
posts had been erected inside and outside the national park, but
they were not much help against the loggers.

The security posts, manned by officials from the Ministry of
Forestry, have reportedly become tainted and were now used as a
place where the illegally cut timber could get legal documents.

Some officials have allegedly been cooperating with the
illegal loggers to allow the illegal logs to pass the posts and
be taken to designated areas. "The security posts are no longer
effective. If they were effective, illegal logging would no
longer occur," said Tamen.