|
|
Conclusions
-
The illegal logging in two of Indonesia's most important protected areas - Tanjung Puting National Park and Gunung Leuser National Park - is out of control and orchestrated by timber barons, members of the military, police and the forest department. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the current wave of logging is not simply a recent reaction to the country's political vacuum, but an acceleration of entrenched illegal activities, corruption and collusion which have defined Indonesia's forest practices for the past three decades.
-
Local communities, although involved in the illegal logging, are merely reacting to the climate of corruption that has surrounded them for years. In many instances the illegal logging is a consequence of the marginalisation and alienation of local people from their rights to forest resources. The loggers themselves are being recruited in increasing numbers to create chaos in the forests, to the continuing profit of the timber barons and corrupt officials behind the massive timber theft. The situation is so bad that illegal logging now outstrips legal timber production in Indonesia.
-
This short-term pillaging of the forests is the legacy of a system that has seen the country's forest resources carved-up between a few members of the power elite, a system the international community failed to condemn. Despite publicity of the recent destruction in Indonesia's National Parks, there has been no outcry from other governments.
-
This rapid onslaught is tearing the heart out of Indonesia's few remaining islands of biodiversity as well as removing future potential for local communities. The environmental fall-out is causing an incalculable loss in terms of priceless biodiversity and pushing the orangutans of Indonesia ever closer to extinction.
|
