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.