National park reported to be under serious threat
JAKARTA (JP): East Kalimantan's once 200,000-hectare Kutai National Park, one of the world's few remaining protected tropical rain forests, is under serious threat, a press report said yesterday.
Since the forest was declared a national park in 1982 it has lost about 50,000 hectares, mainly due to illegal logging which officials concede is hard to stop with only 85 forest rangers equipped with 27 motor boats.
The latest controversy is the government's decision to give control of 10,000 hectares to coal-mining company PT Dwipangga Sakti Prima (DSP).
UNESCO was the first international organization to protest the plan.
The threat to the national park was raised in a government officials meeting in the provincial capital of Samarinda Monday.
Quoting a forestry authorities' report submitted to the governor, Antara said that human encroachment posed the most serious threat to the park.
The authorities' inability to control human encroachment has enabled thousands of seminomadic slash-and-burn farmers to desecrate the forest.
An area near Telukpandan has been occupied by more than 960 people who have cleared 700 hectares of reserved forest. Another 439 people near Sangkimah have turned 300 hectares into a residential area and 350 farmers near Selumpus Kandolo deforested a 275-hectare site to cultivate it.
The most serious deforestation has occurred near Bontang, where more than 2,600 people have encroached into 1,146 hectares of the protected forest. In Sangatta, for example, 3,838 residents have turned 973 hectares into farmland.
Last year, the authorities seized 32,000 cubic meters of wood worth Rp 371 billion (US$157 million) being smuggled out of the national park.
"Also threatening the park is the rife poaching of endangered species protected by law, such as deer," East Kalimantan provincial forestry office chief Heru Basuki said in his report to governor H.M. Ardans.
Local conservationists have voiced strong opposition to the government's decision to allow DSP to exploit the forest.
"The government's decision is regrettable," Wawan Kustiawan, an ecological researcher from Samarinda's Mulawarman University, told Antara.
Lungs of the world
Wawan said that the Kutai National Park is the only protected primary rainforest, often dubbed the lungs of the world, in Kalimantan and one of but a few in the whole world.
Experts say the national park is home to 11 of Kalimantan's 13 primate species, more than half of its mammal species and 80 percent of the island's bird species.
The park, Wawan argues, is a reflection of Indonesia's serious conservation efforts and UNESCO's involvement in research activities there shows the world's appreciation of the action taken.
According to Wawan, Unesco has twice protested the issuance of the permit to DSP. The latest complaint was filed last month.
When the organization initially opposed the plan last October, UNESCO's technical supervisor Raleigh Ablouch sought an explanation on the decision from the forestry ministry. No rely was ever received, he said.
"To date, there has been no answer from the government. This is regrettable because the exploitation of the forestry reserve will tarnish Indonesia's image," Wawan said.
DSP's permit became public last year when three people claiming to represent the company showed the park's chief, Warsito, the documents issued by the minister of mines and energy.
They said they would conduct a comprehensive survey on the area's mineral potential.
Warsito said he was unaware of the surveys conducted by the company, adding that he was awaiting information from the forestry ministry.
The government has considered resettling thousands of forest squatters as a way to preserve the national park but critics doubt whether the government could meet the cost. (pan)