Despite Bali and Joburg, Lampung abuses forest

Despite Bali and Joburg, Lampung abuses forest

Oyos Saroso H.N.
The Jakarta Post
Bandarlampung

Certain groups in Lampung have apparently shown complete disdain
for the Sustainable Development Summit that opened in
Johannesburg, South Africa, on Monday as they are continuing,
with the partial blessing of government decree, to loot a major
part of the protected forest in Bukit Barisan National Park, due
to illegal farming and logging.

An alliance of local nongovernmental organizations accused the
government of "forestry crimes" since it had a lot to do with
allowing a 1995 government sustainable forestry development
program to be abused by many.

They said Ministerial Decree No. 662 issued by the Ministry of
Forestry in 1995 to launch the forestry development program, was
a good idea that called for sustainability and moderation by
allowing a limited amount of planting to be done in the forest
without cutting down trees over a certain size. But it was abused
by many people and apparently aided and abetted by local
officials.

"The decree, or at least in the way some have chosen to
interpret it, has allowed forest 'squatting', causing serious
damage to 60 percent of the 350,000-hectare national park,"
Watono Nurdin, director of the Consortium for Lampung Forest
Conservation (K2HL) told The Jakarta Post here over the weekend.

Watono criticized the government for its "overprogress" in
carrying out the sustainable development program by exploiting
forest resources, which it was not supposed to do under the
decree.

"Indonesia was actually a step ahead of the Johannesburg
Summit, but Lampung's misinterpretation, or perhaps abuse, of the
policy has resulted in serious deterioration," he lamented.

The provincial administration, in cooperation with the
National Agrarian Agency (BPN) actually allows local farmers,
through cooperatives, to utilize, in moderation, protected
forests to grow certain crops in efforts to help improve their
social welfare and to prevent them from cutting down trees.

"The ministerial decree, in the manner in which it was
implemented, has caused serious damage to the forests and the
national parks and their biodiversity. Even worse, a part of the
national park has been claimed by farmers as their personal
property," he said.

According to him, the ministerial decree that has been revised
several times must be suspended temporarily to repair the local
people's misperception on the forestry program.

According to Worlwide Fund for Nature (WWF) data, some 9,000
hectares of forests in Pematang Sawah, Tanggamus Regency, have
been converted into farmland by forest squatters, in addition to
the thousands of local people who have illegally settled on
several forest areas in Sinarjaya, Purwosari, Srirejo, Tejomulyo,
Karang Anyar and Sinar Laut.

Tugiman, chief of the local office of BPN, declined to comment
on the rife forest looting in the province.

Yulden Erwin, coordinator of the Lampung Anticorruption
Committee (Koak) called on the international environmental and
financial organizations to be more selective in providing
assistance to the government and its poverty eradication programs
in the forestry sector, because they were being abused and
causing serious problems for the environment.

According to him, corrupt local officials manipulated the
government policy on forests to enrich themselves, and in the
process caused wide swaths of deforestation.

He said many local government offices as well as the police
and military had turned a deaf ear to the increasing calls to
halt the deforestation, mostly due to illegal logging in national
parks.