Illegal logging: Where do we go from here?
Illegal logging: Where do we go from here?
Illegal logging sees no slowing down
Stevie Emilia
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
When the world's biggest timber smuggling operation from Papua to
China was exposed this year, it marked a turning point in the
fight against illegal logging in the country.
Released in February by the London-based Environmental
Investigative Agency (EIA) and its local partner Telapak, the
report -- which openly accusing high-ranking Indonesian Military
(TNI) officers of being in cahoots with other government
officials and law enforcers in running the racket -- worked like
magic.
Wasting no time, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rounded up
his subordinates and ordered a huge crackdown led by the National
Police and supported by the Indonesian Military against the
smuggling operation -- estimated to be worth around one billion
dollars a year in merbau logs from Papua to China amid a log
export ban in place since 2001.
Just within three months after the report was launched,
Telapak recorded that the Rp 12 billion (US$1.2 million)
crackdown has netted 173 suspects and seized over 385,000 cubic
meters of logs.
The police also reported in May that they had submitted case
files on at least 25 suspects, including three middle-ranking
Papua police officers, to prosecutors, while case files on the
remaining 151 suspects were still being completed.
The crackdown has also affected the market for merbau timber,
a hardwood used mainly for flooring, with shortages and price
rises reported in both Indonesia and China.
But the crackdown failed to impress long enough, nor failed to
stop the country's rapid deforestation rate, claimed to be the
world's worst with an area the size of Switzerland being lost
every year.
Telapak's forest campaigner, Muhammad Yayat Afianto, said the
crackdown had an immediate affect on reducing illegal logging but
lamented the significant fact that the major criminal networks
were not broken although the government has been informed of the
officials involved in the racket.
Come December, the magic has completely worn off.
Around the country, illegal logging continues as before --
even reaching deep into protected forested areas like national
parks.
From 144 million hectares of tropical forests that the country
had in 1991, it has shrunk to 110 million hectares in 2003 as
deforestation caused by illegal logging, forest fires, forest
conversion is unstoppable at a rate which is estimated at more
than 2.8 million hectares per year.
Weak law enforcement, political will and conflicting policies
-- which look good on paper, but because capacity and resources
are lacking, cannot be enforced -- have meant that deforestation
is still on the rise in many parts of the country, like
Kalimantan, Sumatra and Sulawesi.
In Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, millions of hectares
of forest are currently at risk if the government proceeds with a
plan to open the world's largest palm oil plantation on the
island.
The plan -- which is expected to cover an area of 1.8 million
hectares along the 850 kilometer Indonesia-Malaysia border in the
northern areas of West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan provinces
-- is feared might harm not only the forest but also the rich
forest biodiversity in Kalimantan, which has a vast area of
tropical rain forest and is home to several near-extinct species,
like orangutans.
All these years, according to the World Wife Fund for Nature,
Kalimantan, which has 27 million hectares of forests, has
suffered from rapid deforestation at the rate of 1.2 million
hectares per year. The World Bank even predicts that by 2010, all
of Kalimantan's lowland forests will disappear if nothing is done
to curb deforestation.
Timber smuggling operations are also hard to miss in Lampung
where illegal logs are being shipped out of the Way Kambas and
Bukit Barisan Selatan national parks to illegal sawmills in broad
daylight.
The illegally processed logs are then openly transported to
ports -- equipped with all the legitimate documents like the
Processed Timber (SAKO), Log Transportation (SAKB) and Forest
Products Validation (SKSHH) certificates -- to reach Java and
other islands, causing the country an estimated Rp 15 trillion in
losses per year.
However, during raids, the bosses escape arrest, leaving their
smalltime workers in the hands of law enforcers.
Bukit Barisan Selatan and West Lampung Police recorded only 17
cases of illegal logging and apprehended 24 suspects from January
to November this year.
Out of the 17 cases, only suspects in three cases were given
up to four months jail and fined up to Rp 200,000 (US$20) per
person, while six other cases are still under trial and the
remaining eight cases are still under investigation.
In line with Article 50 F and H of Law No. 41/1999 on
forestry, smugglers could face a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Head of Lampung Forestry Office, Arinal Djunaidi, claimed
there were extensive operations being conducted to curb illegal
logging, which caused the province to lose 12,500 hectares of
forested area per year, but they mostly exposed small cases since
the province only relies on 200 forest rangers.
The absence of proper employment was also blamed for the
spread of illegal logging in Lampung, with residents willing to
spend up to five months in jail as long as they can get Rp 50,000
each for carrying illegal logs, according to Joko Santoso of the
Lampung-based Illegal Logging Response Center.
In Papua, however, the Bogor-based Telapak did see some
significant progress after the crackdown with almost no more
illegal shipments reported from April to November this year.
"But we have heard no progress on the trial, although the
attorney general said that 87 percent of the cases were already
in their hands," Yayat said, adding that if the timber mafia are
removed it will give a chance to the Papuans to benefit from
their own natural resources.
With the magic gone -- no real law enforcement by handing down
the maximum sentence for big timber bosses involved in illegal
logging, no support for the forestry community, more natural
forest conversion and no coordination among institutions like law
enforcers and officials -- the future of the country's forests is
bleak.
"I think the government still has to work hard to reduce
illegal logging next year. If we fail to stop it, Indonesia will
have no more natural forest by 2010," Yayat said.
-- With additional reporting by Oyos H.N. Saroso in Lampung
and Nethy Dharma Somba in Papua.