Way Kambas National Park on the brink of ruin

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post/Bandarlampung

Famous for its elephant training school, the Way Kambas National Park in East Lampung is deteriorating, with more than 60 percent of the park being pillaged of its trees and thousands of hectares turned into cassava and corn plantations.

From the outside, the 125,000-hectare park appears intact, but upon entering, vast areas have been overgrown by tall grasses where once hardwood trees such as meranti, tenam and others grew.

A resident, Nardi, said he had been cultivating cassava on a plot of land in the park for the past seven years, claiming he was forced to do so in order to support his family.

As a native of the place, he claimed that he had never received any benefit from the park. "What happened was that a herd of wild elephants from the park frequently ravaged my paddy field and farm located outside the park," said Nardi.

He claimed that he and other residents living around the forest had been cultivating the land in a number of areas inside the park because the land had already turned into idle grassland.

"It's not because we cut down the trees. Those who cut down the trees are outsiders. They are hired by logging financiers from Jakarta and Bandarlampung," he said.

Since the beginning of the so-called reformasi (reform) era in 1998, after former president Soeharto was deposed from office, the rate of forest destruction in Lampung has drastically increased. Residents have collectively cleared forest areas on the pretext that they inherited the park from their ancestors.

This situation has been exploited by timber financiers to reap huge profits by paying residents to fell large trees, then buying them up at low prices.

Traders buy a cubic meter of meranti for only a few hundred thousand rupiah. It is then sold for millions of rupiah on the open market. Unfortunately, those who get this money are not the residents living near the park.

Residents living around the forest are only left with smaller parts of the trees, remnants from the illegal logging activities. After all the trees have been completely plundered and the area turned into grassland, only then will residents start cultivating cassava.

Executive director of the Lampung chapter of the Indonesian Environment Forum (Walhi), Mukri Friatna, disclosed that the problem of illegal logging in the Way Kambas National Park was not only caused by a limited number of forest rangers guarding the park.

According to Mukri, the most important factor was the seriousness on the part of park management and police to unravel the timber trade syndicates.

"Since logging and transportation of the timber are done in broad daylight, how is it possible that they get away with the sawn timber unnoticed? It's rather strange that they (park management and police) have difficulty getting hold of the perpetrators, because their exit routes are obvious," said Mukri.

One entry point used by illegal loggers, for instance, is in Cabang village, in Seputih Surabaya district and Rasau village, Gaya Baru district -- both in Central Lampung, as well as Sadewa village, located at the mouth of Seputih Surabaya river in Central Lampung.

According to Mukri, access through Sadewa is the easiest way to bring timber out as the area directly borders the Way Seputih River estuary.

"Timber can be gathered and transported by trucks from the river, or they can be directly moved by large boats and then cross the Sunda Strait to Karangantu Port in Banten," said Mukri.

Head of the East Lampung Forestry and Plantation Office, Edwin Bangsaratu, said the loggers were not from the area, claiming that security personnel and illegal loggers were frequently involved in shoot-outs during raids.

"It shows that they (the loggers) have been armed by the financiers," said Edwin.

Edwin said that even if the area's residents were to blamed, they were not fully at fault for the damage because most of them were poor.

The residents, he said, cultivated the land but harvests were not adequate to meet their families' needs, forcing them to enter the park to take forest products, or hunt for animals.

Head of the Way Kambas National Park information office, Mega Heryanto, acknowledged the presence of illegal loggers and poaching, but limited numbers of forest rangers made it hard to catch the perpetrators.

"We have conducted night and day patrols. We have caught several perpetrators, and some of them have been brought to trial," said Mega.

According to Mega, his office has also conducted a public awareness campaign for residents living around the national park in order that they refrain from illegal logging and poaching practices.