Tempo recently journeyed over the 16-kilometer Blangkejeren-Dusun Gajah section of Ladia Galaska to look at the impact of the controversial road project on the environment and the local population.

The old jeep was leaving Blangkejeren, a small town on Lembah Leuser, when the ground was still wet with morning dew. Aswan, the driver and owner of the Toyota, deftly negotiated the long, winding road. The car he bought in Medan three years ago roared on into Dusun Gajah through the Simpang Badak intersection on a part of the Ladia Galaska road that rises steeply up skirting the ridges of the Leuser mountain.

Now and then the jeep crossed paths with another car. Aswan would brake if the driver of the other car was an old friend. After a few words of greeting and pleasantries, he would continue with his Toyota, unconcerned with the tires that might blow up at any time under the heavy load and on the rough terrain.

Aswan is well familiar with this part of the forest, many times transporting soldiers, researchers and journalists safely across to their destinations.

Tempo was traveling over the Blangkejeren-Dusun Gajah section to revisit Ladia Galaska, the road project that has attracted public attention over charges of corruption and serious damage to the environment in its implementation.

Residents say only a handful of drivers like Aswan dare travel the tortuous road. Other drivers would think twice. "The road is very steep and dangerous," they would say. Aswan negotiated his way up and down the steep hills and ravines without changing gear. For three minutes his Toyota stalled, its engine growling with anger, before it broke free and continued on.

Aswan spent 10 liters more gasoline on the Blangkejeren-Dusun Gajah section than he would normally do on the old road further down the mountain close to the villages. Project workers say the incline in this part of the forests is more than 60 percent. In other words, it's not an ideal part to build a road on.

In the past pine trees grew profusely spreading naturally on the sides of the mountain. Further up the hills huge tropical trees, including meranti, dominated the scene. A person flying in a helicopter over the area would have a magnificent view of trees covering the forests like a giant canopy. But that was in the past. Today, as TEMPO found during a visit to the area last June, nothing was left of the huge tropical trees. Three-fourths of the way up the mountain, most of the forest had been opened to farming.

The area along the road is a tropical forest with thin, sandy topsoil. No houses. No lush vegetation growing up to the ridges of the mountain.

The road is deserted most of the time, the still of the forest now and then broken by the sound of cars like Aswan's breathing heavily up the mountain, and the cries of siamang swaying from tree to tree deep in the jungle.

The area is rich with wildlife, especially primates like beruk (short-tailed macaque), siamang (gibbon), mawasan (orangutan), and kera. Some 89 protected animal species and 3,500 plant species are found in Leuser.

Construction of the road is bound to wreak havoc on the ecosystem and wildlife in the area. Six years ago the government declared 1.8 million hectares of the forest as a conservation area known as Leuser Ecosystem Zone.

The road down the mountain is steeper, in many parts strewn with landslides. Some bridges are on the verge of collapse blighted by rainwater. It took more than one hour for Aswan's Toyota to cover the 16-kilometer stretch between Blangkejeren and Dusun Gajah-not a great distance to cover without much difficulty if not for the severe terrain.

Most trees on both sides of the road were gone, except for those left beyond the river or on the hills. A pathway led to the ridges of the mountain where more trees were being cut down. Muhyan Yunan, head of the local infrastructure office, says the Blangkejeren-Gajah section is not a new roadway. It used to be a dirt road widely used by the villagers before it was upgraded, widened and asphalted by Ladia Galaska at an incline the villagers consider precarious.

Settlements & Regional Infrastructure Minister Soenarno says, however, that local residents were actually used to such conditions.

What's the use then of upgrading, widening and asphalting a footpath into a road that villagers avoid, preferring instead to go by the dirt road that they have used for generations. And what's the use upgrading and building a road if no cars are going to use it?

Tempo waited for an hour at the end of the road in Dusun Gajah. No cars, no bicycles, no transports of any kind were to be seen-except for the cries of siamang high up in the trees. "The road is built at the request of the people to break the isolation of the hinterland," says Yunan. Governor Puteh adds that Ladia Galaska is being built to link economic activities in the west coast (Indian Ocean) and those in the east coast (Malacca Straits).

Or maybe the section is not part of the "economic links"? Where are the villagers said to benefit from the "economic links"? As TEMPO saw it along the 16-kilometer Blangkejeren-Dusun Gajah section of the road, only a few geucik (hamlets) occupied by several families dotted the area, smaller ones like Geucik Gajah and Geucik Uring, and the bigger ones Lokop and Pinding.

Angsar, head of Geucik Gajah, told TEMPO he was not aware of the government plan to build the road up on the hill. "Suddenly the bulldozers came and the mountain split," he said. Salabiah, his wife, added she would not go by the new road as it was located far from the family farms and the river. Local residents, said Salabiah, had hoped the government would asphalt the road at the hillside leading to their farms.

"But the government asphalted the dirt road on the hill and ignored the one down the hill," said Salabiah. "We'll buy a horse for our daily transportation needs," she mused. Months before, the couple said, they saw with their own eyes dozens of trucks loaded with logs descending the mountain toward Blangkejeren. "They built the road only to cut down the trees," Angsar said bitterly.

Two weeks later back in Jakarta, Tempo visited Governor Puteh at the Mandarin Hotel, with a report on what Tempo found at the Blangkejeren-Dusun Gajah section of the road. After a serious look at the report, Puteh said Ladia Galaska was a big project extending out to more than 470 kilometers. "If there's a

section that's not built at the right place, we can always relocate it to another site," he said.