Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – The presence of mobile sawmills around Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS) in West Lampung, Lampung province, poses a serious threat to the park.
Widespread illegal logging in limited production forests next to the national park is strongly believed to be a result of the many sawmills, especially mobile sawmills, locally known as walking sawmills.
In 2005, West Lampung Forestry Office closed all sawmills and no longer issued logging permits to community-owned forests (IPKTM), or authorized timber product certificates (SKSHH), because the sawmills and permits were believed to exacerbate the illegal logging problems in the province.
"The mobile sawmills have reopened because of the high demand for illegal timber from outside the area, especially from Bandarlampung and major cities in Java.
In West Lampung and Tanggamus regencies, a limited number of sawmills have been allowed to remain open – those equipped with IPKTM certificates," Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Lampung chapter director Hendrawan said Thursday.
Hendrawan said the huge volume of logs and processed timber in limited production forests and TNBBS showed that the mobile sawmills were still operating, especially since from a number of illegal logging cases, most of offenders were sawmill owners.
"The mobile sawmills have become a serious threat because their owners are hard to detect. They work in a careful manner. After sawing timber into particular sizes, illegal timber is floated downstream to trucks waiting at the river mouth, to be transported to Bandarlampung and Java through Bakauheni Port," Hendrawan said.
In the middle of last year, Walhi found 92 cubic meters of processed timber ready to be taken out of Bengkunat-Belimbing limited production forest, which borders next to TNBBS.
The timber was placed in a position ready to be floated downstream in a river linking the forest with an estuary in West Lampung.
Investigations conducted by West Lampung Forestry Office and the TNBBS Center found that the ready-for-sale processed timber was owned by a sawmill company that did not have an IPKTM permit. However, the sawmill owner was not punished despite being proven to have conducted illegal logging.
In March 2009, forest rangers discovered dozens of cubic meters of timber believed to not have IPKTM certification in the upstream area of Way Upang, West Lampung.
In mid February 2009, forest rangers also found 30 cubic meters of illegal timber in Ujungpandang hamlet, West Lampung, believed to have originated from a preserved forest or TNBBS.
TNBBS Center head Kurnia Rauf said illegal logging in the park had apparently dropped, adding that no cases were recorded last year.
"Illegal logging still exists, but the illegal loggers have shifted to trees found in buffer zones, such as preserved forests and limited production forests near TNBBS," he said.
Kurnia added that based on investigations conducted by the TNBBS Center, illegal logging was rampant in protected forests and limited production forests. Loggers usually gathered felled logs neatly in those forests. However, efforts to uncover these cases were futile.
"The lack of witnesses has become a problem in revealing perpetrators. Local residents have also remained silent because they are afraid," he said.