Leuser Park
Most national parks in Indonesia have suffered from illegal logging and encroachment. It is widely known that forestry, officials, police and military personnel, and businessmen are most responsible for encroaching on national parks. This at least has been shown in a court verdict in Medan on Sept. 11, 2000. Ten government institutions, one cooperative, two companies and one military foundation were asked to pay Rp 300 billion to compensate for the reforestation of the Leuser Park.
The chief judge Mr. Hakim Aspar Siagian, based on the strong evidence, decided that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the North Sumatra Regional Provincial Forestry, the North Sumatra Forestry, the government office of Langkat regency, the Langkat National Land Agency, the Langkat Forestry, the government office of Bahorok district, PT Amal Tani, KUD Sapopadang, PT Kencana, and Yayasan Bukit Barisan guilty of encroaching on the park. The government offices had provided licenses that allowed cooperatives and companies to damage the park.
The violators destroyed about 400 hectares of the Sapopadang park area with the construction of new roads, the planting of oil palm trees and the logging of endangered trees besides causing wildlife disturbances. Indeed, Rp 300 billion is not sufficient to compensate for the damage but nevertheless this verdict gives new hope for strengthening laws on parks.
The Student Nature Group of Himalaya and Genetika have filed a class action suit against the encroachers. They have given the power of attorney to Biro Bantuan Hukum UISU (Legal Aid Office of Islamic University of North Sumatra) to represent them in court. The organizations are members of a consortium of more than 30 NGOs known as KPH-KEL (Consortium for the Protection of the Forest and the Leuser Ecosystem) who actively advocating and litigating forestry violations in North Sumatra and Aceh. Another member of the consortium, FKP61, is a legal organization with more than one hundred lawyers currently taking legal action against the provincial and Langkat regency police offices regarding the release of a businessman suspected of encroaching on Leuser Park.
The judge's verdict should be seen being in favor of protecting parks in Indonesia. Weak law enforcements have resulted in the near extinction of many endangered species in various parks. According to Prof. Carel van Schaik of University of Duke, every year about 1,000 orangutans die in Leuser Park. This trend has been going on for the last six years, resulting in a tremendous reduction in the orangutan population, from about 12,000 in 1993 to only 6,000 in 1999. The main causes for this are conversion of forest land into plantations and illegal logging. If the trend continues, it is estimated there would be less than 1,000 orangutans in Leuser Park in the year 2010.
Economically this would be a great loss for Indonesia. A great tourism potential would vanish. The orangutans also play an important role in the ecosystem. The decline in the orangutan population may also be followed by a decline in the population of other animal species. Because orangutans are very sensitive animals, they require a healthy environment to survive.
To safeguard the parks, the local people, local NGOs, judges, policemen, lawyers, and prosecutors should be empowered The responsibility to stop illegal logging should be shared by the local people and organizations in the provincial and regency levels.
DENI PURBA
Medan, North Sumatra