The Ministry of Forestry (Kemenhut) together with the Garuda Task Force have strengthened efforts to control the Tesso Nilo National Park (TNTN) area as part of a strategic step to restore 3.7 million hectares of forest areas that are managed not according to their functions.
"TNTN is the President's strategic target in the forest area recovery program, whose initial results will be announced on August 17, 2025," said the Director General of Law Enforcement (Gakkum) of the Ministry of Law and Forestry Dwi Januanto Nugroho as reported by ANTARA, Friday, June 20.
"We are supported by all elements, including the Echelon I of the Ministry of Transportation, to rehabilitate forest areas with a comprehensive and humanist approach," he added.
The Garuda Task Force, which was formed based on Government Regulation Number 5 of 2025 concerning the Forest Area Control Task Force (PKH), has started operations in TNTN which has an area of 81,739 hectares.
Based on this area, it is known that around 40,000 hectares of the TNTN area have been illegally opened and planted with palm oil.
The government targets the recovery of forest areas in Riau Province through a labor-intensive-based rehabilitation scheme, ecosystem restoration, and overall law enforcement.
Dwi Januanto also emphasized the importance of cross-sectoral support in overcoming the inequality in the number of Forest Police which is considered incomparable to the magnitude of the challenges of forest security in Indonesia.
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He said based on information from the Garuda Task Force, the current condition of the TNTN is very concerning. The elephant population continues to decline and in the last 20 years the area has been degraded due to illegal activities of migrant communities within the region.
Of the approximately 15,000 people living in the TNTN area, only 10 percent are natives.
With a strength of 380 personnel stationed at 13 points, the Task Force has installed portals, built guard posts, and started the emptying process persuasively without violence.
A number of people have also started voluntarily leaving the area. The Task Force noted that 1,805 SHMs were published in the TNTN area, which is currently being verified with BPN.
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