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.