Fidelis E Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 5 Aug 10;
Indonesia. Environmental groups on Thursday urged the government to arrest two businessmen allegedly involved in smuggling rare timber from Papua to China.
“We want more action to be taken against these people because we believe that the issue of illegal logging has not really been touched,” said Julian Newman, campaign director of the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency.
Newman said local authorities had only arrested chainsaw operators, truck drivers and other “low-level men,” rather than high-level illegal logging operators. “We’d want to see some action on that,” he said.
In an investigative report, the EIA and an Indonesian group, Telapak, said two businessmen were illegally exporting merbau logs to China, India and South Korea.
According to the report, in mid-October in 2009, customs officers in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, discovered 23 containers carrying 400 tons of merbau logs allegedly belonging to one of the businessmen.
It alleged that the containers were shipped from Makassar, South Sulawesi, where the businessman “runs a massive merbau timber company.”
The other businessman was described as an “old player” in the merbau timber-smuggling business who had received a special government dispensation to export the rare and slow-growing tree species to China in 2008.
The report, “Rogue Traders: The Murky Business of Merbau Timber Smuggling in Indonesia,” was released after detailed and undercover investigations by the environmental watchdogs starting in 2005.
Indonesian laws only allow the export of semi-finished wood products, but the groups claim the two businessmen illegally exported rough-sawn timber.
Newman said merbau timber could fetch about $1,000 per cubic meter in China, while the logs could be obtained for Rp 3 million each ($335) from local brokers.
“Those businessmen could actually face charges under the Forestry Law and could be locked up in jail for 10 years, ” he said.
Merbau is endemic to Papua, and is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Papua has the last remaining intact merbau forest in the country.
Hapsoro, program director at Telapak, said the government should list merbau in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna so to help it limit the trade in the species.
“That does not necessarily mean banning all trade in merbau. But it would limit how much merbau could be traded because we are losing billions of dollars here,” he said.
Newman said China, one of the biggest importers of merbau timber, should also sanction illegal traders. “It is not up to Indonesia alone. It is also up to China, which is wide open to importing illegally logged timber,” he said.
Indonesia 'woefully inadequate' on illegal loggers: probe
(AFP) Google News 5 Aug 10;
JAKARTA — Indonesia is allowing powerful businessmen to get rich from smuggling rare timber to China despite its pledges to crack down on illegal logging and preserve its forests, environmentalists said Thursday.
An undercover probe by the independent Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and local group Telapak found rampant smuggling of merbau, a valuable hardwood found mainly in Papua.
The probe tracked the illicit trade from the forests to the ships where the wood was being illegally exported, mainly to China, with the help of corrupt officials.
Complaints to authorities about the two alleged kingpins in the trade had achieved nothing, the groups said in a report.
"While the huge quantity of illegal timber flowing from Indonesia during the first half of the decade has declined, effective law enforcement against those responsible -- the financiers, company bosses and corrupt officials -- has been woefully inadequate," EIA campaign director Julian Newman said.
The groups called on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to make good on his promises to crack down on what he has called the "logging mafia" that is accused of destroying much of the country's pristine forests.
Indonesia is one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, mainly through deforestation.
Yudhoyono has pledged to slash its emissions by more than 40 percent over 2005 levels by 2020, as long as foreign donors pour billions of dollars into the country for forest preservation.
"The illegal trade of merbau is symptomatic of the wider problems and the governance failure in the forest sector in Indonesia," Newman told reporters.
"It is not only the problems of Indonesia. China has been wide open to illegal timbers. We hope China will follow the US and the EU in banning illegal timber in a bid to protect forests."
Telapak representative Hapsoro said the government was allowing the kingpins of the illegal trade to run riot.
"It is time for Indonesia to redouble its efforts to combat timber smuggling by going after the main culprits," he said.
