Rangers stage rally to save forests

Rangers stage rally to save forests

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Hundreds of forest rangers and employees of state-owned forestry
company (Perhutani) in Surabaya, East Java, staged a rally in
protest at corruption within the firm and for better pay.

"We don't want KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism) in
Perhutani to cause damage to the forests," a protester told a
crowd gathered at the company's offices on Jl. Genteng Kali,
Surabaya.

The demonstrators, from the Sekarjati Workers Union, arrived
outside the offices at around 9:30 a.m., carrying posters and
banners.

Some crowded a section of the street and urged residents to
support their move.

After they had secured the public's attention the protesters
moved slowly to the parking lot to the west of the Perhutani
building.

Protest leader Marinus Ezerman stated that he and other
employees had, for a long time, been dissatisfied at Perhutani's
performance.

"We often find irregularities, but those involved in such
practices continue to secure good positions in Perhutani," he
said.

This time the employees demanded the practices stop
immediately, Ezerman added. "Field workers have always been
blamed for forest destruction, whereas those who damage them are
our leaders, who are corrupt."

The protesters also urged the company to pay extra attention
to efforts to restore the ecological balance in forests. "We are
the ones who really know about the state of the forests, and are
very concerned at the issue," Ezerman said.

As with forests in other provinces across the country, forests
in East Java have suffered from severe destruction.

In the 1990s some 80,000 hectares of forest were damaged;
destruction increased to 110,000 hectares in 2000, and to more
than 150,000 hectares a year later. These figures exclude areas
that could no longer be classified as forest as they could not
function as such anymore.