Leuser Park
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