Papuan police seize illegal logs in raid
Papuan police seize illegal logs in raid
Netty Dharma Somba and Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura/Makassar
Papuan Police have seized thousands of cubic meters of rare
Merbau timber aboard a ship after they found problems with its
timber permits.
The move came as law enforcers stepped up measures against
illegal logging, which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's
administration has vowed to crack down on in its first 100 days
in power.
Police said on Thursday they had found irregularities in the
timber permits when they intercepted the MV Fitria Perdana last
week.
The permits produced by the ship captain said the volume of
the timber amounted to 2,772 cubic meters. Police, however,
estimated the volume at more than 5,000 cubic meters.
No arrests have yet been made. Police said they were still
examining all the documents regarding the shipment of the logs,
which were ordered by a company in Pasuruan, East Java.
The boat was sailing to Biak island when the police led by Sr.
Comr. Dwi Marsanto intercepted it earlier last week and towed it
back to Jayapura. Marsanto said the police had received a tip-off
about the boat from locals.
"We flew to Biak and intercepted the vessel before it reached
the port and ordered the captain to turn back to Jayapura,"
Marsanto said.
It took the police and forestry agency officials four days to
calculate the number of the logs seized, which belonged to
businessman Andi Alii in Arso, Jayapura.
Earlier this month, Papua police seized 4,000 cubic meters of
illegal logs and detained a Malaysian boat KM Godri II which was
carrying equipment used to fell timber in Takar, Jayapura,
without a license.
In Makassar, Ministry of Forestry secretary general Wahyudi
Wardoyo said his office had submitted the names of 59 people
believed to be involved in illegal logging to the National Police
and Attorney General's Office.
They were mostly businessmen and government officials, Wahyu
said. He declined to disclose the names, saying it was the
investigators who had the right to do so.
Illegal logging has caused Indonesian forests to dwindle by
2.8 million hectares a year with a total losses to the state
estimated at Rp 30 trillion (US$3.3 billion) a year.
Without stern measures from the government to curb illegal
logging, Wahyudi predicted the country's forests would have
vanished in 20 years.
About 59 million hectares nationwide are believed to be
damaged by illegal logging and land clearing, with 15 million
hectares of forest completely destroyed.