Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Kaban said on Friday he planned to meet with Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo Adi Sucipto to help resolve the rampant illegal logging in Papua, which a recent report says is backed by members of the military.

"It is organized crime and it involves many officials," he said on Friday. He said it would not be easy to arrest and prosecute military or government officials involved in the crime because "they are very tricky."

Kaban was responding to a report by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Indonesian environmental group Telapak, which revealed a massive smuggling operation of illegal logs from Papua to China by an international syndicate.

The report implicates top military and government officials, Indonesian law enforcers and crooked entrepreneurs in Malaysia, Hong Kong and China in the crime.

The report says about 300,000 cubic meters of merbau (Intsia) logs from Indonesia, most of them from Papua, are being smuggled to China each month. Merbau is one of the most valuable timber species in Southeast Asia.

Separately, State Minister of the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said that his office would soon conduct an environmental assessment of Papua's forests to examine the destruction caused by the illegal logging there.

"Papuan forests are among the few forests left in the country. We must preserve them, therefore, we'll make an environmental assessment soon," he said.

Kaban said that his ministry would conduct a massive offensive on illegal logging in Papua but said that to be effective it must be supported by other ministries and government institutions. "We have conducted crackdowns [before] in Kalimantan, but they have only worked for a while," he said.

Kalimantan used to be the center of illegal logging operations in the country, but as its forests had been greatly diminished loggers were now focussing on Papua, activists said.