Gresik District, photo doc of PPLH Mangkubumi
The Independent Forestry Monitoring Network (JPIK) found evidence of a primary industrial timber company holding a timber legality certificate (SLK), involved in a series of illegal logging in the Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve, Riau Province.
This fact was revealed by JPIK in a press release through the “zoom” application, by presenting a number of national mass media online or virtual from Bogor, West Java, Thursday.
“This data is one of the three fact points found by JPIK in monitoring the compliance of license holders for the use and trade of timber forest products in eight provinces from October 2019 to June 2020,” said JPIK Campaigner Mochamad Ichwan.
The test results of the implementation of the timber legality verification system (SVLK) through a series of supply chain analyzes for primary industry raw materials and field monitoring in the eight provinces, JPIK found three indications of violations at the upstream level.
First, illegal logs originating from the Rimbang Baling wildlife reserve, Riau are known to be easily circulating.
Timber in the protected area can even be easily transported to meet the supply of raw materials for several primary industries whose licenses are questionable in Simpang Kambing (Teratak Buluh) and Lubuk Siam, Kampar Regency.
Second, a similar case was found in the Production Forest Management Unit (KPHP) Lalan Mangsang Mendis, in Musi Banyuasin Regency, South Sumatra Province.
From this area, it was found logs in the form of logs with a length of approximately four meters in Seven Hamlet, Muara Medak Village, which are strongly suspected of being the result of illegal logging which was washed away through the Medak and Merang Rivers.
The wood is transported to several industries in South Sumatra and Jambi.
“Third, the company under the guise of CV MRTK’s Timber Utilization Permit (IPK) without obtaining S-LK is strongly suspected of harvesting timber from the land clearing of PT CSHS’s oil palm plantation in Kaur Regency, Bengkulu Province,” said Ichwan.
Meanwhile, at the downstream level, companies exporting forestry products that had SLK were found to be using wood products sourced from companies that were not certified, so their legality was doubtful.
In addition, it was identified that there was a mode of not mentioning the type of wood in the document which explained the legality of forest products by industrial license holders, allowing the fraudulent use of wood included in the CITES Appendix II list, without a distribution permit and special documents.
According to JPIK researcher Deden Pramudiana, illegal logging that has occurred in a number of areas, especially in Rimbang Baling is still ongoing even though the COVID-19 pandemic is striking.
The transport of illegal logs did not stop even though the Riau Regional Police (Polda) carried out an operation and arrested a unit of tronton truck containing natural forest logs from illegal logging in the Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve in May 2020.
“In addition, CV MRTK’s negligence in making PSDH and DR payments has the potential to cause state losses in the form of Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) and indications of corruption in natural resources (SDA) in issuing permits for utilization of timber forest products,” said Deden.
This article is published in www.antaranews.com
