KLHK Ready To Build A Forest Police Academy In Sentul Bogor

Illustration of forest police. (Between)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) plans to build a forest police academy in Sentul, Bogor, West Java. This effort is to strengthen the capacity of forest police in order to eradicate environmental and forestry problems.

"KLHK is currently preparing a special location for improving forest police education and training, which we often call forest police academies in Sentul," said Director General of Law Enforcement (Gakkum) of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Ratio Ridho Sani during the ceremony. 56th Anniversary of the Forestry Police in Jakarta, Wednesday, December 21, was confiscated by Antara.

He said that currently the number of forest police spread across the KLHK, local governments, and several SOEs was 8,643 officers. This figure is not sufficient to monitor forest and conservation areas spread throughout Indonesia.

However, his party ensures that they continue to try to increase the number of forest police through recruitment and increase their capacity through various education and training.

Several examples have been taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to increase capacity, such as related to asset recovery of environmental criminal acts, handling conflicts between animals and humans as well as training in law enforcement cooperation management.

In addition, the formation of a technology-based forest police unit is also carried out, such as for cyber monitoring and forensics.

"These are steps we have to take to increase the capacity of forest police," he said.

On that occasion, he reminded the ranks of forest police that there is the potential for increasing the complexity of environmental and forestry cases in the future, with the emergence of new crime modes.

"There is no other choice for every member of the forest police besides continuing to train and to improve his abilities," he concluded.

The Director General of Law and Human Rights of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry also highlighted the importance of cooperation between ministries and institutions to address environmental and forestry cases.

For this reason, the ceremony also signed a cooperation agreement between the Directorate General of Law and Human Rights of the Ministry of Finance and the Directorate General of Customs and Excise to strengthen collaboration in prevention and prosecution of environmental and forestry cases.