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.