State forests looted for Jepara furniture

By Yusran Edo Fauzi

BLORA, Central Java (JP): In 1998, particularly in the period following the May riots, the forests managed by Perum Perhutani Unit I Central Java in Randublatung, Blora witnessed the illegal felling of about 19,140 teak trees, making Blora the second biggest victim of forest looting after Pati regency.

Some of the perpetrators of the illegal felling were arrested during an operation after the Central Java Police chief issued a "shoot on sight" order.

Among those arrested were 38 policemen, several military officers, and a number of forest rangers and Perhutani employees. Most of them were caught red-handed felling trees, in the street and at the timber stacking sites.

Unfortunately, the perpetrators of illegal felling this year are still at large. Also, there has yet to be concrete evidence produced to support Perhutani's claim that as of July this year, the state had suffered Rp 4.5 billion in losses.

Local legislative council members and non-governmental organizations doubt the claim because of the lack of evidence.

In a recent discussion involving Perhutani, the Blora regent, the local legislative assembly, NGO representatives and ecologists from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, it transpired that Blora residents had been looting the timber to vent their anger at the residents of neighboring Jepara whom they said had prospered from Blora's teak.

According to Blora residents, the situation is as follows.

The forested area in Blora constitutes 48 percent of the entire regency. Unfortunately, the forests do not make Blora residents rich. The Jepara residents get rich, instead, as they are the purchasers of the timber.

"When I was a university student, I often thought why forest- rich Blora's roads were in a state of disrepair and also why most of the residents were badly off. Were these poor conditions the result of a corrupt bureaucracy or should they be blamed on the regional legislators who did nothing concrete but collect their salaries every month," chairman of the Blora regency legislative assembly, Warsid, said.

Now Warsid knows the reason. Law No. 9/1969 stipulates that state enterprises should try their best to maximize profit, while Perum Perhutani is given sole authority over forests in Blora.

The allocation of profits from forest products comes within the authority of the central government. This means the that the Blora regency administration has no authority over this matter. So, the Blora regency administration is reduced to relying solely on forest royalties as its source of revenue. There are no other items in the budget which are capable of jacking up the regency's revenues.

The Blora residents' resentment toward their richer fellows in Jepara may be likened to the envy that the mainland Chinese nurtured for the prosperity enjoyed by their fellow Chinese in Hong Kong when it was still a British colony.

Jepara has hardly any forests. The Jepara people, however, can make a lot of money as skilled wood craftsmen and carvers, and depend heavily on forestry. By contrast, the Blora people are generally barely able to keep body and soul together despite their vast forests.

In Blora, where some 7,000 people have lost their jobs since the crisis began in July 1997, rice cultivation is not a viable alternative as a kilogram of unhusked rice only fetches Rp 800 nowadays.

In fact, the same thing applies in Jepara but the farmers there have another alternative for earning a living. Furniture factories prioritize local Jepara people when recruiting workers into the thriving industry.

In 1998 alone, some 600,000 cubic meters of teak, mahogany and other varieties of timber that cost about Rp 4 million per cubic meter, were purchased for the production of carved wooden furniture.

The official data show that as of this November, Jepara is home to some 4,000 furniture producers. Most of their products are exported with a profit margin of over 100 percent. That's why they are always ready to buy teak at high prices regardless of whether it is looted or Perhutani-labeled. Their production costs are paid in rupiah but their earnings are in US dollars.

There are some 60,000 Jepara residents working in this sector. They have all benefited from the increase in the value of the US dollar against the rupiah.

It is also the case that, according to the Jepara agricultural office, there are some 240,000 farmers in the area. They grow Chavendis bananas for export. So in general, the pinch of the monetary crisis has not been felt in Jepara.

Just as in other places that have reaped windfalls from the rise in the dollar's exchange rate against the local currency, in Jepara the people spend their newfound wealth buying land, automobiles, jewelry and expensive electronic equipment.

The opposite has happened in Blora. The increase in the exchange rate of the US dollar against the rupiah has dealt a strong blow to the regency's economy. Only a few people operate furniture home industries. They do not export their products because they cannot compete with their fellows from Jepara.

In terms of regional revenues, the contribution of furniture exports has shown a downward trend. In fiscal 1997/98 at the early stage of the monetary crisis, the furniture industry contributed 14.48% of overall revenues. This figure fell to 10.65 percent in 1998/99.

Understandably, the people of Blora are envious of their neighbors in Japara. Instead of physically assaulting the Jepara people, they have turned this envy into a desire to get rich quickly by illegally felling teak and mahogany trees.

The indications showing that illegal felling has taken place in Blora can be gleaned from the data collected by the local Perum Perhutani. Jepara needs some 600,000 cubic meters of timber. This quantity is far beyond Perum Perhutani's capacity.

This state enterprise is able to supply a total of only 676,000 cubic meters to meet the total demand in Central Java and Yogyakarta. If it were to meet the demand from Jepara, Perhutani would only have 76,600 m3 left for these two provinces.

Obviously, the high demand for timber in Jepara has prompted people to fell trees illegally, especially since the onset of the economic crisis.

"If there were not such a high demand from the furniture industry in Jepara, few would resort to illegal felling," said an observer of forest ecology, Rama Ardana Astraatmaja of Arupa, a Yogyakarta-based non-governmental organization.

Chief of the forest management unit in Blora, Soemarsono, said that the forests under his control saw illegal felling of some 318,000 cubic meters of timber between January 1998 and July 2000, most of which was teak.

This massive illegal felling has reduced the forested area by 4,433.85 hectares. "In the year 2000 alone, Perum Perhutani in the Randublatung forest management unit in Blora has sustained losses worth Rp 4.5 billion. The magnitude of the illegal felling has left us deeply shocked!" he said.