Indonesia: Belantikan Conservation program for Orangutan

“Are there police patrolling this logging concession? Is there no plan
in place to replant trees to rebuild the forest?”. Answer: Logging
concessionaires have police on check points on access routes into
their concessions, because illegal logging isn’t just a problem for
the National Parks, it occurs in many forms.

The police, however, only
monitor local people who try to extract trees – they are on the side
of the concessionaire. It is the Forestry Department who monitor the
activities of the concessionaires. The operator in Belantikan seems
reasonably respectful of the law.

In other areas the ‘legal’ loggers
are less responsible. Personally, I think our partners Yayorin
(www.yayorin.org), a local Indonesian NGO, deserve big credit for the
behaviour of the concessionaire in Belantikan. By simply being there,
they are helping to keep everyone on the straight and narrow.

As for replanting, there is a reforestation program but one hopes the forest
there will recover on its own. The soils are more fertile than those
we have in the lowlands and there should still be a crop of
regenerating young trees left behind.
http://orangutanfoundation.wildlifedirect.org/2009/01/27/who-patrols-the-logging-concessions/

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