No Need To Wait For Karhutla, KLHK Encourages Illegal Logging Officials

Illegal logging illustration. (Between)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) urged the authorities to take firm action against illegal loggers, aka illegal logging.

Director General of Climate Change Control of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Laksmi Dbahthi, said that there is no need to wait for forest and land fires (karhutla) first.

"Law enforcement does not have to wait for forest fires, once there are or indeed suspected as illegal logging, we must carry out direct operations," he said at the 'FMB9: Anticipation of Forest and Land Fires' which was followed online, Monday, June 19, which was confiscated by Antara.

Responding to the rise of illegal logging cases in a number of areas such as Riau, Laksmi stated that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry would fight the suspect by prioritizing the concept of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) or Lestari Forest Management (PHL).

The SFM is a dynamic and growing concept to maintain and improve the economic, social and environmental value of forest resources for the benefit of the present and future generations.

As a tangible form of taking firm action against illegal logging perpetrators, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry immediately carried out further operations as soon as it was proven that the suspect was logging by not complying with the rules that apply, especially in the conservation area.

For example, when the alleged logging is actually carried out illegally and unlawfully, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry through the Directorate General of Law Enforcement will coordinate directly with the Police and law enforcement officers at the scene to determine penalties that can provide a deterrent effect.

The next effort that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry made was to ask the intelligence authorities for help to collect evidence, some of which were in the form of personal data of the alleged perpetrators, such as who the leaders were funding illegal activities to the designation of the wood were used.

We have built how to enforce the law from the courts and so on. Coordination in the field continues because we also have working areas or officers in the area who will handle this issue," he said.

In addition to data from intelligence, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry together with the environmental offices in the local area also built a data-based system that aims to monitor and detect the flow of wood entry and exit in an area, and find out whether the pieces of wood came from official logging areas or not.

Laksmi emphasized that there are other efforts such as increasing the education of each related policy or program in the area where cases occur. However, the action will be adjusted to the findings in the field.

Thus, Laksmi asked, especially in preventing the bad effects of El Nino spreading, the public could wisely maintain environmental cleanliness and not just do bad things that have an impact on the ecosystem or other parties, so that the environment can remain comfortable and healthy to live in.

"So to enforce this law, we have a work method both horizontally and vertically," he said.