Sumatra: Illegal logging in Way Kambas National Park, East Lampung
The 125,000-hectare reserve features dense growths of large trees and
a multitude of wild animals, crisscrossed with crystal clear rivers.
However, they may be disappointed once they enter the area, which is
also designated as a tourism site. The park has been devastated by
illegal logging, forest conversions and animal poaching, due to lax
law enforcement.
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Since 2001, dozens of poachers and illegal loggers have been caught,
among them a high-ranking naval officer and officers from the police’s
elite Mobile Brigade. However, none of the violators have been
punished for infringing the environment law. Cases involving military
and police personnel have never been resolved. Widespread forest
conversions in the national park rose sharply in 1998, along with the
onset of the so-called Reformation era, or the downfall of former
president Soeharto’s iron-fisted rule.
Thousands of immigrants from Java, Sulawesi and a number of provinces in Sumatra arrived in the area to begin new lives. Data from the Lampung Forest Coalition (KHL) shows as much as 60 percent of forested areas in the national park have been severely damaged due to illegal logging, with another 1,000 hectares converted into cassava and corn farms.
TNWK head Hudiono said his office, along with dozens of forest rangers, was working hard to secure the park from conversions and poaching. “We only have a few dozen officers to guard the 125,000-hectare park, so it’s impossible for us to oversee illegal logging and poaching activities everywhere within the forest,” he said. A newcomer from East Java, Rahmani, said he had been engaged in cassava farming in the park for the past 10 years.
“I only plant on wasteland. Cassava and corn have been grown in
this area for years,” he said. Another resident, Subandi, 58, said the
farms set up by residents were a form of protest against government
policies that seemed to tolerate illegal logging within the park.
“Some park employees were recently caught for illegal logging, but
were released just like that. This has occurred many times, but we,
who have only used wasteland, are questioned. It’s not fair,” he said.
He added that among the prized trees sought by timber companies were
the meranti and tenam.
Meranti can fetch millions of rupiah per cubic meter on the market, while traders buy them from illegal loggers for only a few hundred thousand rupiah. “The perpetrators are usually hired hands. They are not from around the area. Local residents only get the remains of the illegally logged trees. They open up cassava farms only when the forested area has been turned into wasteland,” Subandi said. Timber companies are free to take timber out of the forest due to the number of strategic routes in the area. Among the routes often used by illegal loggers are those through Cabang village, Seputih Surabaya district, and Rasau village, Gaya Baru district, and Sadewa village in the Way Seputih River delta area, all in Central Lampung regency.
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