Timber bosses challenge logging discrimination
Nethy Dharma Somba and Puji Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura/Pekanbaru
Irritated by inconsistency on the part of security officers, timber businesspeople have taken the law into their own hands, seizing timber being transported into Jayapura city.
Amid a fierce campaign against illegal logging nationwide, dozens of people representing several groups involved in the timber trade seized on Wednesday night 15 cubic meters of various types of undocumented timber.
"The security officers are unfair. On the one hand, they arrest illegal loggers and increase their surveillance over timber transportation. But, on the other hand, they allow some groups to transport undocumented timber into Jayapura," said Chris Wamuar, a local timber businessman. "Such inconsistencies have forced us to take the law into our own hands," he added.
It is not clear whether the timber businesspeople hold the documents in question themselves.
The group of people waited on Jl. Abepura just outside Jayapura on Wednesday evening for trucks carrying timber into the city. As the trucks approached they blocked the road and demanded to see documents certifying the timber was legally logged.
The drivers of six trucks had no documents, so the people seized the timber, but let the truck drivers continue on their way.
Chris said the timber would be put up for tender. However, he claimed to have no idea who would profit from the sale.
"We will continue to take this sort of action until next week. We hope that it can open the hearts and minds of security officers, so that this unfair practice is put to an end," Chris said.
Jayapura Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Muhammad Son Ani was not available for comment on Thursday.
Separately in Pekanbaru on Riau Island, a top police officer announced on Thursday that local police had seized almost 2,000 cubic meters of timber in an anti-illegal logging operation conducted since March 5.
Three sawmills were shut down during the operation and 33 people arrested, said Riau Police chief Brig. Gen. S. Damanhuri. He said none of the people arrested were police or Army personnel.
The National Police embarked on an anti-illegal logging operation in February following President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's instruction for them to crack down on illegal loggers.
The President's order came after two environmental groups published a report in February, entitled The Last Frontier, which revealed the largest timber smuggling case of a single species ever discovered, an operation estimated to be worth more than US$900 million a year.
The report documented the smuggling of about 300,000 cubic meters of timber a month from Indonesia, mostly Papua province, to China.