Jakarta/Banda Aceh, Langkat – The Forestry Ministry on Thursday blamed the authorities' inability to halt illegal logging for the devastating floods and landslides that have killed at least 118 people on Sumatra island.
Meanwhile, Vice President Jusuf Kalla has continued to blame rapid deforestation for natural disasters across the country.
Earlier, environmental groups Walhi and Greenomics said the disaster in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, which has suffered the most from the recent floods, could have been predicted.
However, the Forestry Ministry's director general for forest protection and nature conservation, M. Arman Mallolongan, said it would have been impossible to prevent the floods.
"We knew it would happen, but to regreen all of the denuded areas takes time," he told The Jakarta Post. "It's too bad because it seems that we (the forestry and environment ministries) are the only ones concerned with forest conservation."
Greenomics has said that 2.1 million of Aceh's 3.3 million hectares of forest have been destroyed by legal and illegal logging. The Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) procured 36 percent of its timber for post-tsunami reconstruction work from the seven Aceh regencies currently submerged by floods, the group said.
Arman agreed illegal logging was a problem in Aceh. "The logs and timber being transported across the province, including those used by the BRR, must have been felled illegally."
He said the Forestry Ministry had not issued any logging permits in Aceh. However, he acknowledged that some companies may have secured permits from local administrations. "A company holding a permit would have to have been certified by the provincial, municipal or regency administrations."
"Recently a worker linked to a regent was detained for using a permit for logging in a forest in Central Aceh. But the authorities later released him," he said.
He said the ministry would not issue logging permits for Aceh because most of the trees were in conservation and protected zones.
Irwandi Yusuf and running mate Muhammad Nazar, who look set to win Aceh's recent gubernatorial election, vowed Thursday to take steps to fight illegal logging in the province, detik.com news portal reported.
Flooding in Aceh has killed at least 71 people in six regencies, including 50 victims in Aceh Tamiang. At least 164 others are still missing.
In North Sumatra's Langkat regency, 14 bodies have been recovered from flooded districts as of Thursday, while the bodies of 33 people have been recovered from the scene of a landslide in Mandailing Natal regency.
A spokeswoman for the Indonesian Red Cross in Aceh Tamiang, Rina, said Thursday flooding had yet to subside in five districts and 17 villages.
In Gayo Lues regency, seven villages in Pining district remain cut off due to floods and landslides.
Some flood victims in North Aceh and Bireun regencies have begun returning to their homes. "The number of displaced people is now 252,302," said Iskandar of the Aceh Disaster Response Unit.
More than 203,000 of the displaced are in Aceh Tamiang.
Floods and landslides in North Sumatra also have damaged schools. In Langkat regency, 115 schools were inundated by floods while in Muara Sipongi district, Mandailing Natal regency, landslides damaged 18 schools.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla again blamed natural disasters in Indonesia on the destruction of the country's forests, with the deforestation rate at 2.5 million hectares annually, both due to legal and illegal logging. The reforestation rate is about one million hectares per year.
"This means our forests are shrinking by 1.5 million hectares every year, and that is if the reforestation of the one million hectares is successful," Kalla said in West Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, where he kicked off a national forest rehabilitation campaign Thursday.
He said those planting trees could not compete with the people cutting them down. "It takes 20 years for a tree to grow big but it only takes 20 minutes to cut it down..."