Most wood processing factories around the Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem in Tebo, Jambi, still receive illegal timber. The wood is illegally felled from state forests both in national parks and their supporting areas. This picture shows a wood factory in Sumay region, Tebo, on Sunday (6/3/2016).
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The Environment and Forestry Ministry is preparing an integrated operation to eradicate illegal logging in the Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem in Jambi. However, the operation is still constrained by budgetary and personnel limitations. Forestry crimes are also threatening many other regions across Indonesia.
Such was the message conveyed by the ministry’s director of forest protection and crime prevention, Istanto, in Jakarta on Monday (13/2). He said that the ministry was focused on resolving encroachment and illegal logging issues in Tesso Nilo National Park and Giam-Siak Kecil-Bukit Batu biosphere reserve in Riau.
“The governor and regent in Sarolangun, Jambi, have asked for help. However, an operation will be difficult as we are facing local resistance and personnel and budget constraints,” he said.
According to Istanto, the government had set aside only Rp 2 billion (US$150,037) for the ministry’s operation, excluding the operational budget for the ministry’s technical units across the country.
On the availability of rapid response forestry police (SPORC), Jambi had only 30 personnel, Palembang 38 and Riau 80.
On the four illegal loggers arrested in Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem on Saturday, the ministry’s director general for sustainable production forest management, Ida Bagus Putera Parthama, said that the four suspects had been found to have falsified forestry product certificates (SKSHH) in line with the Online Forestry Product Administration Information System.
“The illegal logging is not done by infiltrating the system. The perpetrators falsified the documents, like they falsify graduation certificates. They print the documents and change them,” he said.
Putera has ensured that the documents will not be able to pass the verification system at the loggers’ destination point, while adding that field officers would not be able to check the documents on the go. “The system was deliberately designed to reduce costly field checks,” Putera said.
If the wood transporters with falsified documents do not go to the destination designated in the documents, it can be ascertained that the wood processing site at the destination point is illegal.
Tebo Police mobile detective unit chief Second Insp. Cindo Kottama said in Jambi that, apart from not having the SKSHH document, the four suspects also could not show their wood transportation note. The eight-cubic-meter logs that they were transporting had been stolen from the PT Alam Bukit Tigapuluh restoration concession, which had been illegally encroached.
Within the restoration concession, there is a 3,000-hectare unlicensed palm oil plantation. The opening of the plantation that had originally been within Riau province’s territory has now expanded into neighboring Jambi. “Trees are being cut down by the company to create room for the plantation. Some of the logs were taken by the locals,” Cindo said.
