Track Illegal Wood Sources, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Finds Thousands of Wood Batons in West Kalimantan

Kemenhut Gakkum officers secured illegal wood evidence in the Ulak Medang Village area, Delta Pawan District, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, Sunday (18/1/2026) ANTARA/HO-Kemenhut

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Forestry (Kemenhut) has tracked down the source of illegal wood in Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan (Kalbar), and found evidence of around 1,500 more logs scattered on land and water, as well as a number of logging equipment.

Head of the Regional Forestry Gakkum Office of Kalimantan Kemenhut Leonardo Gultom explained that the findings were an expansion of the case of the discovery of hundreds of illegal logs on Saturday (17/1) which then identified the location of logging and wood accumulation in the Ulak Medang Village area, Delta Pawan District.

"This operation is proof of the seriousness of the team in dismantling the chain of forestry crimes. Checking the location of the source of the origin of this wood is a direct follow-up to the arrest of the wooden raft on Saturday (17/1) early morning," explained Leonardo as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, January 20.

"Armed with initial information, we immediately combed upstream. We are doing this to dismantle illegal practices thoroughly and find the intellectual actors, not just stopping at downstream transporters," he added.

The development operation was carried out with information and information from five people who were secured in the previous operation.

The team moved to a location that was quite difficult to reach, using water transport for one hour from Ulak Medang Village, followed by a walk of approximately two kilometers through the forest.

The Gakkum team found four points of wood accumulation with approximately 900 wooden sticks, four series of wooden rafts with an estimated total of 450 wooden sticks, hundreds of wooden sticks that are still in the logging point.

Then two units of machine saws, fuel oil, push carts used to transport wood from the forest to the river, as well as illegal infrastructure in the form of horse roads and two work huts suspected to belong to illegal loggers in carrying out their activities.

When the team arrived at the location, the perpetrators were suspected to have fled so that no workers were found at the scene of the crime (TKP).

Officers immediately carried out security measures at the crime scene and evidence for further investigation.

Based on the collection of coordinate points in the field, he said, the location of the logging and wood accumulation was within the Sungai Sentap-Kancang Production Forest (HP) area.

The location is suspected to be within the area of the PT MPK concession permit, which is a company engaged in Sustainable Forest Management in Ketapang Regency.