Efforts to curb illegal logging hampered by collusion

Efforts to curb illegal logging hampered by collusion

Musthofid and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Chronic collusion among officials and a lack of financial
support have hampered the Ministry of Forestry's bid to curb
rampant illegal logging, which has caused Rp 30 trillion in
annual losses to the state, an official said on Tuesday.

"Collusion among officials in related institutions, including
the forestry ministry, has made illegal logging difficult to
tackle," said R.B. Wijono, the Ministry of Forestry's director of
the Forest Protection Agency.

Collusion has been further encouraged by the government policy
on regional autonomy, which has resulted in uncontrollable acts
by local administrations at the regency level.

"The local administrations tend to exploit their logging zones
excessively for their own benefit without concern for the
preservation of forests," he told The Jakarta Post.

Collusion between logging companies and officials has also
prevented efforts to curb timber smuggling. In 2001, the Ministry
of Forestry and the Ministry of Trade and Industry placed a ban
on log exports in a bid to reduce the demand for wood chips.

Transtoto Handadhari, a forestry expert from the ministry's
Forestry Planning Agency, revealed that logging companies were
willing to pay hundreds of millions of rupiah to smuggle illegal
timber out of the country.

The amount included the money paid out to security personnel
manning checkpoints in logging areas. In South Kalimantan, for
example, a company could spend up to Rp 1 billion for the
transport of every 10,000 cubic meters of logs from logging areas
to Banjarmasin, from where they would be loaded onto ships that
would carry them to various destinations.

"Between 60 percent and 70 percent of the shipment of 10,000
cubic meters of wood is usually not legally documented," he said.

"With three million cubic meters of logs transported every
year from South Kalimantan's logging areas to Banjarmasin,
imagine how much money is involved to make things run smoothly,"
he said.

To make things worse, forest rangers, who are crucial in
guarding the country's forests and preventing illegal logging and
the smuggling of wood, are both under-skilled and underequipped.
They do not have the necessary equipment to help them carry out
their jobs, including proper transportation and telecommunication
devices. Their numbers, too, are far too low compared to the area
they have to cover. There are only 10,000 forest rangers to
oversee Indonesia's 120 million hectares of forests, said Wijono.

He did not give an ideal number.

Transtoto, who said illegal logging had reached an alarming
level, attributed the illegal activity to a high demand for the
timber.

"The availability of the supply to meet national needs is only
between 25 and 30 million cubic meters per year to the 80 million
cubic meters in demand," he said.

"With the plywood industry requiring about 60 million cubic
meters of timber, where else does the remaining supply come from
if not through illegal logging practices?" he said.

Rampant illegal logging has resulted in the disappearance of
some two million hectares (4,800,000 acres) of Indonesia's
forests between 1990 and 2000. The latest data indicates that
Indonesia has lost more than 75 percent of its natural forests
over the past few decades, leaving only 60 million hectares
today. If the current rapid pace of deforestation continues, the
World Bank predicts that Sumatra's forests will disappear by
2005, with forests in Kalimantan to follow suit five years later.

Ironically, given last year's alarming data, efforts to curb
illegal logging appear sluggish, with only Rp 286 billion worth
of logs confiscated through operations against illegal logging,
compared to the Rp 30 trillion of annual losses inflicted. There
was a total of 1,000 cases of log smuggling in 2001.

Wijono blamed the small recovery on a lack of financial
support. The operation involves other related institutions,
including the National Police.

"Last year, the Ministry of Forestry alone spent Rp 3 billion
for operations against illegal logging and this year we have
allocated some Rp 10 billion in operational costs," he said,
adding that the 2002 operation against illegal logging was
launched recently on Aug. 14.

The government has made some attempts to protect and preserve
the forests, although the results have been somewhat
disappointing.

Indonesia has been campaigning worldwide for a war against
illegal logging. Following a regional meeting in Bali in June
this year, during which Asian countries agreed to a consensus on
how they should act to overcome the smuggling of forest gains,
Indonesia has forged ties with other countries, including Norway,
Finland, Britain and China.

The move aims at stopping the import of wood and wood-based
products whose origins are questionable.

The Norway deal was secured during the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg, South Africa, early this month, in which State
Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim also floated three new
plans to curb corruption and boost law enforcement.

One of the plans was the establishment of what he called
"Formula 12", which would involve the appointment of 12 "able and
clean" judges to sit on the special environmental court and with
every case to be tried by three judges.

However, Wijono said that Formula 12 had yet to be introduced
to the forestry department.

The ministry is also planning to set up an independent team to
assess the performance of forest concessionaires. Based on the
assessment, the team will determine whether their contracts can
be extended or revoked. However, Wijono refused to elaborate on
the form of punishment to be meted out against perpetrators,
saying it was not within his directorate's authority.

The majority of concessionaires, Transtoto said, commit unruly
practices of logging, which leaves 30 percent of their logging
zones severely damaged. Data from July 2002 on the planned use of
raw material for the industry lists 119 concessionaires.

Logs smuggled overseas reach 10 million cubic meters per year.
Most are exported to China, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.