Widespread illegal logging to bring more drought, floods

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Prolonged droughts and forest fires will continue to hit the country during the dry season as more and more protected forests are destroyed by illegal logging, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said on Saturday.

Walhi said flashfloods and landslides would also plague people during the rainy season as the remaining forest would no longer be able to absorb and hold water.

"We can't stop the impending disaster unless illegal logging is stopped," Walhi executive director Longgena Ginting told The Jakarta Post.

A report has said that illegal logging has been rampant in Mt. Leuser National Park in Aceh and North Sumatra, Kerinci Seblat National Park located in West Sumatra, Jambi, Riau, South Sumatra and Bengkulu, Mulawarman National Park in South Kalimantan, Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, and Roro Lindu in Central Sulawesi, following the economic crisis that swept Asia in 1997.

Illegal logging has reportedly been backed by government officials in some areas, House legislators, and some Army and Naval officers.

Longgena said Riau, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, recently hit by choking haze from forest fires, remain prone to drought and fires.

Numerous regencies in North Sumatra and Aceh are the areas most vulnerable to major flooding, he said.

Major floods inundated four regencies in North Sumatra earlier this year, killing five people.

Aside from natural disasters, illegal logging in protected forests also jeopardizes endangered species.

"I think the illegal logging problem owes a lot to the overcapacity of forest-based industries," he said.

In one year, forest-based industries need 63 million cubic meters of wood, but the government allows concessionaires to cut down 12 million cubic meters of trees.

"How can these industries meet their quotas if they don't buy illegal logs," he said. "But because illegal logging has destroyed unprotected forests, they are targeting protected areas."

Most of the timber from illegal logging in the country has been exported.

State Minister of Research and Technology Hatta Radjasa said Indonesia ranked second after Brazil as the world's largest supplier of logs to the international market, but 70 percent of the timber came from illegal logging.

Koes Saryadi, spokesman for the Ministry of Forestry, said that various natural disasters would remain a real threat to the country due to illegal logging in protected forests.

Therefore, the ministry would continue to fight illegal logging through their cooperation with governments of countries that have imported illegal logs and their derivative products, he said.

Indonesia has cooperated with China and Japan to curb illegal logging and the trade of illegal logs.

Saryadi said his ministry would arrest those involved in illegal logging, but that would not be effective if they did not have the locals' support.

For example, he said, when forest rangers confiscated illegal logs in Kerinci National Park, the locals tried to burn down the rangers' office.

"It will also depend on the efforts from other state institutions, such as the National Police, the Attorney General's Office and judges, to enforce the law," he said.

Under Law No. 41/1999 on forestry, anyone convicted of activities linked to illegal logging, its trade or the purchase of illegal logs could face a 10-year jail sentence and a Rp 5 billion (US$561,700) fine.

However, Longgena said that illegal logging could only be stopped with a moratorium on logging for at least five years.

"With a moratorium, we could easily know and arrest those who are carrying out logging," he said.

Longgena said that a five-year moratorium would allow the government to restructure the wood-based industry and reform the utilization of forests.

He said that Indonesia should take a lesson from China, whose government succeeded in implementing a ten-year logging moratorium in the early 1980s.