Illegal land clearing leaves national park in jeopardy

PALU, Central Sulawesi (JP): Urgent action is needed to save the protected forests in Central Sulawesi's Lore Lindu National Park from illegal land clearing, according to a news report from The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization.

The report warns that land clearing near Lake Lindu is destroying the habitat and creating an agricultural corridor which will isolate a significant section of the park and provide a permanent base for further habitat destruction.

Lore Lindu National Park, declared a UNESCO "Man and the Biosphere Reserve", is one of Indonesia's most important refuges for biodiversity. The park's lowlands and mountain forests contain more than 190 species of birds and several unique mammals.

The Nature Conservancy report states that without action "inward migration and concomitant levels of destruction can be expected to further increase".

The report's author, consultant biologist Dr. Jim Jarvie, said damage to the west of Lake Lindu included two newly cleared "slash and burn" areas totaling 25 hectares, new rice fields and a new village. Dr Jarvie said the recent clearing meant that there was only a thin, four-kilometer band of forest remaining between the edge of the park and the expanding agricultural areas around Lake Lindu inside the park. The park covers 217,000 hectares.

To the north of Lake Lindu, a road has been built to another new village, new trails have been cut for illegal rattan (cane) collection and there is extensive timber removal. Also, a forest area which has been regenerating for 30 years after being cut down for agriculture, has been newly cleared.

"We face the possibility of losing a complete habitat of rolling hill montane forest," said Dr Jarvie. "To the north of Lake Lindu there's a new settlement of about 50 houses with families which means that it's permanent. We can hear chain saws operating, clearing the valley system."

Dr Jarvie also said new settlements inside the park were polluting water supplies for villages downstream.

Banjar Yulianto Laban, the head of Lore Lindu National Park management, said he hoped "concrete steps would be taken to resolve the encroachment" to the north of Lake Lindu by the end of March, or else "more serious actions would be taken, based on existing regulations".

One solution is that farmers inside the park who can show they have no access to agricultural land will be offered land well outside the park.

News of the forest clearing provoked a demonstration on Monday, March 20, by about 50 members of the Kelompok Peduli Taman Nasional Lore Lindu (Lore Lindu National Park Concern Group) outside Kanwil Dephutbun Sulteng (the provincial forestry office) and the Balai Taman Nasional Lore Lindu office (BTNLL). The protesters demanded that the forestry department and BTNLL take more active steps to prevent destruction of the park.

-- Richard Smithers