ILLEGAL LOGGING AS AN EXTRA ORDINARY CRIME

Illegal logging can be categorized as an extra ordinary crime, involves multi actors and it is committed as trans national crime. Aside from seeing it as national problem and ecological crisis only, illegal logging also supposes to be seen as international problem. The destruction faced by Indonesian forests mean the destruction of most of the world’s lung. In general, it means that the continuity of human being’s life is facing hazards.

Remarks of WALHI emphasizes the importance of the position of the Indonesian forest. According to WALHI, Indonesia has 10% from the remained tropical forest in the world, containing 12% of world’s mammal species, 16% reptile and amphibians, 1519 bird species, 25% world fish species and some of the are endemic animals which can only be found in specific area.

Although the government has declared war against illegal logging but in the reality the forest coverage in Indonesia keeps decreasing from year to year. According to the food and Agriculture organization (FAO), the size of Indonesian forest during the five years from 2000-2005 decreased for 9.4 million hectares. Some factors influence the decrease of the size of the Indonesian forest such as the changing of the function of the forest which is influenced by corruption, illegal logging and the high demand of wood for industrial purposes.

For the last point, according to the data from Future Forest Working Group (FFWG, 2004) 70% consumption of the log wood for industrial purposes in Indonesia comes from illegal wood. In other words, the main supplier to fulfill the need of wood in Indonesia is illegal logging. As a matter of fact, the standard capacity of Indonesian forest to produce legal wood is only 17 million m3 but the demands reach 53 million m3. Therefore 36 million m3 of woods is needed every year and it was fulfilled by illegal logging activities.

The message from the various versions of data describing the destruction of Indonesian forest is actually easy to understand by the government, law enforcer and the society. Basically the data and the result of some researches describing the critical picture of forestry sector. Majority of Indonesian forests are deforested, destroyed, and the ecological condition is changed. It means disaster for environment, plasma nutfah, and for the life of the human being future generation.

The United Nations is concerned for the serious destruction of Indonesian forest and the illegal logging rate in Indonesia. According to their report in 2002, the UN predicts that the forest at the low land in Sumatra and Kalimantan will be extinct on 2032. As a matter of fact, the deforestation rate is very fast therefore according to the UN report published in February 2007, they predict that the forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan will be diminished on 2022 or ten years faster than the previous prediction.

UN also said that the illegal logging practices are also happened at 37 out of 41 national parks which suppose to be protected by the government. According to the official data of the Forest Planology Institution of Indonesia Forestry Department the deforestation in 7 big islands in Indonesia during 2000-2005 is 5.45 hectares or in average is 1.09 hectares per year.

Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) and some other NGPs work in environment even release higher deforestation rate. According to the data from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2007 in FWI report, in five years the Indonesian forest coverage decrease more than twice of the calculation from the Forestry Department. Indonesian forest coverage is decreased for 9.4 million hectare in 2000-2005.