Illegal Logging Still Rampant in Indonesia’s Papua
Jakarta, Indonesia, July 18, 2006--With much of the forest in Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan denuded, Papua stands as a last frontier of Indonesia's remaining pristine forests, according to the Jakarta Post.
The world's second-largest island still contains an extensive area of ancient forests, with trees aged hundreds of years home to many plant and animal species that have yet to be identified. Environmentalists activists refer to the jungle in Papua as "Paradise Forests".
However, they are under serious threat from illegal logging, carried out by international syndicates eyeing Papua's endemic merbau tree, one of the world's most valuable sources of timber in terms of quality and price.
The Jakarta Post's Tb. Arie Rukmantara has wrote three articles that examine the complex issues behind the illicit felling and rampant smuggling of merbau timber from Papua to China, the smuggling routes and what the law has to say in dealing with these issues.
When European explorers first "discovered" the island of Papua and named it Nueva Guinea (New Guinea) in the early 16th century, they quickly realized that the world's second-largest island after Greenland boasted forests of abundant natural wealth.
Historical archives of Papua's natural history compiled by the government in 1962 say an early study by European botanists found trees reaching 100 meters high in some places with webs of branches up to 45 meters long. Trees covered almost all the island's land mass, home to thousands of unique plant and animal species.
Much more recently, a group of Conservation International scientists discovered a host of new species deep in the forests surrounding the remote Papuan mountain of Foja, which they said was "the closest place to the Garden of Eden you are going to find on Earth."
But these days, this Eden is under serious threat. About 40 million hectares of pristine forest on Papua have already been destroyed by illegal logging, which is feeding the growing demand for high-quality timber products across Europe and North America.
In March, the Papua Police confiscated more than 1,000 cubic meters of illegally felled logs, along with heavy equipment and barges in Bintuni regency, some 500 kilometers west of Jayapura.
During the ongoing national operation to combat logging, last year the National Police seized about 500,000 cubic meters of illegal timber from the province in two operations.
However, environmental groups believe the timber the authorities have manage to confiscate is only a fraction of the more than seven million cubic meters of timber they say is smuggled out of Papua annually. That figure is equivalent to 70 percent of all the illegally cut timber leaving the country.
Every year, the groups estimate the country loses around 2.8 million hectares of forest to logging and other forms of land clearing, an area the size of Belgium.
In 2005 the Bogor-based Telapak and London-based Environmental Intelligence Agency detailed the rampant trade in merbau timber, a dark, luxurious, red wood that is primarily used for the manufacture of hardwood floors. This timber can fetch between US$200 and $275 per cubic meter on the global market and even more if it is processed.
In their report, the groups say around 300,000 cubic meters of merbau logs are being smuggled out of Papua every month-- mostly to China. This rapid deforestation is causing an increase in dangerous landslides and floods and is endangering more than 11,000 endemic plant species and 500 animals.
