Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – The fishing village of Kuala Penet, situated at the estuary of Way Kambas National Park in Lampung, might be just a small dot on the map, but for environmentalists it is notorious as the center of illegal logging in southern Sumatra.
The village, which is also known locally as a place where many of its poor residents are forced to eat tiwul (dried cassava) because they are too poor to afford rice, is the main transition point for the trade of illegal logs coming from out of the park before they eventually arrive at the Port of Karangantu in Banten.
Many Kuala Penet residents work as woodcutters in the park while others are timber traders, who source wood from the park and other protected areas on Bangka island and in Riau.
Many claim not to know that the timber they are dealing with is illegal.
Mustami, Ambonacok, Muslimin, Ride and Nasru – all residents of Tenggiri hamlet in Kuala Penet, East Lampung – were transporting 900 nibung logs by boat, the Kembali Lagi, in East Lampung waters when they were caught in a police raid.
Local unit head Adj. Sr. Comr. Putut Prayogi said the nibung timber, logs measuring 14-15 meters in length, originated from Bangka island.
"We intercepted them when they were crossing the waters off Kuala Penet. Our patrol boat noticed a fishing vessel carrying hundreds of logs," Putut said.
Based on Mustami's confessions to police, most of the timber was taken from forests in the Bangka-Belitung area and the other logs were bought cheaply from a hamlet chief in Pon Pasir, Bangka-Belitung. Mustami told investigators he had already pre-sold the time in Kuala Penet at Rp 75,000 (US$7.50) a log.
"We felled the logs and bought them at Rp 3,000 each from several people in Bangka. We stockpiled them for four months before transporting them," he said.
The same time was also needed to gather logs in a river in Bangka Belitung, before they were brought with boats to Air Sujian, South Sumatra. After staying for three days in Air Sujian and preparing another boat to carry the timber, the group then shipped the wood to Kuala Penet.
Putut said the smugglers could face maximum 10-year prison terms in line with Article 50 F and H of Law No. 41/1999 in the law on forestry.
"We are conducting investigations to locate their boss in Bangka Belitung. We are also working to find out the buyers in Lampung," he said.
The executive director of the Indonesian Environment Forum Lampung chapter, Mukri Friatna, said law enforcement against illegal loggers was weak and haphazard in the park.
Mostly small-time loggers and land clearers had been prosecuted and even they had been sentenced too leniently, he said.
"They are usually sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison and fined Rp 150,000. The Way Kambas National Park forest rangers and the police force only catch the small fry, while traders dealing with the contraband have never been prosecuted," Mukri said.
Forest destruction was at an alarming rate in the park, he said, with more than 60 percent of 126,000 hectares of forested areas already turned into idle grasslands and cassava plantations.
Illegal logging activities had also gone on unabated in the northern parts of the park such as Cabang Gayabaru (Central Lampung), Rasau and Kuala Penet (East Lampung).
In Kuala Penet alone, Mukri said that at least 2,000 hectares of the forest had been turned into cassava crops.
In Cabang Gayabaru and Rasau, dozens of illegal loggers openly felled trees using handsaws, machetes, ropes and chainsaws.
The perpetrators used the services of boat operators in the area to transport the already-processed timber.
According to Mukri, the perpetrators usually rented motorboats at Rp 300,000 for each journey.
In a single trip, a medium-sized boat can carry hundreds of cubic meters of wood. Loggers continued to operate in the area despite it supposedly being guarded by a number of forest rangers.
"Like a terminal disease, the condition of the national park, especially the areas in Cabang Gayabaru and Rasau, are in a chronic state. Every day, hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal loggers enter the forest," he said.
Thousands of hectares of forest in the national now resembled football fields, barren of big trees, including the nibung variety that used to be used by fishermen to make floating fish traps.
Only thousands of tree stumps remain. Besides that, many footpaths and hundreds of ditches were found in several parts of the forest, used by the perpetrators to transport timber out of the forest.
Head of the Way Kambas National Park office, Mega Haryanto, claimed his office had faced difficulties in curbing illegal logging in the park. He stressed rangers had made persuasive and preventive efforts to constrain logging activities.
"When taken into account, perhaps hundreds of suspects have already been brought to trial. However, they are not discouraged by the fact. Because of this, we have urged especially those living in buffer zones to cooperate and preserve the national park," he said.
Mega said the illegal activities in the park were not as bad as people imagined. They should be thought of more as "timber thefts" rather than "extreme forest destruction", he said.