Disastrous Effects of Illegal Logging in Indonesia

We are blessed with so many things nature gave to us. Even though up to this day we still can see how beautiful she is, how great are thos forests and how magnificent the environment is, we as human still can not be grateful enough for what we’ve received. It’s proven by how those people cutting down the trees for their own purposes.

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Illegal logging is still becoming an issue in Indonesia. Even though the number of forest police is still capable enough for taking care of them, but sadly they’re surpassed by how massive the number of corporations who willingly to take down the forest for their business. The information about the prevention should be told for everyone in the country to at least decrease the number of that vile activity. That’s why, we also want to share it with this article about the effects of illegal logging in Indonesia that you can see below :

The Definition of Illegal Logging

Before actually knowing about how Illegal Logging can effect the life and environment around the forst, best to know about what is actually the meaning of this activity. We took some references to have better understanding of it, including the definition that can be found inside the Indonesian lawas. So, for the first one let’s see the definition that told by Kartodiharjo.

Kartodiharjo :

So the first definition came from Kartodiharjo back in 2003. He said that illegal logging is an activity of cutting and collecting trees illegally, invalid, and against the law. It’s against the law because of the activity is held in the area of National Forest or proprietary forest or the people who have the rights doing more logging more than amount specified in the permit.

Wahyu Catur Adinugroho :

The next definition is from Wahyu Catur Adinugroho in 2009. The definition of this activity is a list of rule violation which cause an excessive exploitation of the forest. All these violations happen in all the line of wood productions starting from cutting the woods, collecting, processing, marketing, up to the corrupted ways to gain a permit for accessing the forest and also numbers of financial violation for avoiding tax.

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Law number 41 of 1999 about Forest :

And the legal law for this illegal logging activity is law numbe 41 year 1999 about forest in Indonesia. It’s said that illegal logging or destructive logging is an activity that violating the principles of sustainabilty that done by corporations that have legal permit and the government.

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FWI Simpul Papua :

For the last definition of illegal logging, we took a note from FWI Simpul Papua that saying illegal logging is divided by two kinds. The first one is done by legal operators, but violating privions contained in their permit, the second one is done by the stealers who don’t have any legal permit to cutting down the trees for their own economical purposes.

Illegal logging practice in Indonesia

Of course, the effects of Illegal Logging in Indonesia can not be unseen anymore. Every year there’s flood in some areas that have less woods each year. The number of landslide is also keeps increasing, even though it’s never happened before. Because of this, illegal  logging is thing that concern us together. The word “illegal logging” is not the new issue in this country. This vila activity was started long before today, it even started to become a hot topic during New Order of this country. The giant islands in this country like Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Papua, and Java suffering a lot from this activity. They’re having a very fast and massive deforestation within only short time.

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Based on the data served by Tempo back in July 2007, Indonesia loss about 27 million cubic meters per year starting from 2001 to 2006. And the average from that is about 23 million cubic meters for the past five years. It’s very horrifying number, but sadly it’s a fact. If you use that number, the 27 million cubic meters of those forest is actually 40 times the size of Jakarta city, the capital of Indonesia.

It’s not easy to trace who’s causing this unhuman activity. We’re not looking for the workers, they were told to do that by someone, right? The evil mastermind behind all of this are the people who have done the white collar crimes. They really slippery on this one because they have that many protections on their front door. They are businesmen that barricaded with corrupt army, police, politicians, and also government staff who willingly work for them for money they provided. With that power in wealth, they can even buy the justice.

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The Factors that cause it

Of course, there should be reasons for that to happen. So that’s why, we’re bringing some factors that can cause the bad effects of illegal logging in Indonesia still happening.

1. The first one if the high demand of the woods. In the worlwide, we can not prevent those numbers to increase, because people are highly needing for their own purposes. Many corporations can not meet those demands with supply. And that’s why they’re looking for a new alternative to bring more supply in by doing some contracts with corrupt people to do illegal logging. With this, they can get their revenue with only a small price for their cost.
2. Second one is the corruption itself. Many other people out there want to get their wealth in a easy partice but very high profits in a short time. Many people would like to try a new way to gain money, even though they don’t care about legality and such. Those kind of people are the one who keep those illegal logging activities alive until now. They are like invicible, because of networking they have that reach up to the government even.
3. The law against illegal logging is not too strong. All this time, people who done a crime to steal some things from the forest got a very hard punishment like jail time plus the fine. Those people are actually the poor ones that only wanted a food to eat. For the people who done an illegal logging, either they are workers or manager who involved in the project can escape the law easily with the support of their boss. The boss though, well they can even “buy” the law if they want it. Even law like number 41 of 1999 about Forest still doesn’t have a “fang” to bite them. The reason is, beside it’s not strong enough, there are also numbers of corrupt politicians who help to smoothen that activity.

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Effects of Illegal Logging in Indonesia

There are numbers of the bad effects of illegal logging in Indonesia. We included them all on the list below :

• Many lands loss their fertility, making the vegetations like fruits or vegetables hardly to grow
• Numbers of water source decreasing, because the tree roots no longer can help to “save” the water for the lands
• Flood everywhere, as you may know already, the trees and their roots can help us to prevent flood coming to our area.
• Animals, flowers, plants, are slowly gone, the tropical forests in this world contain about 80 to 90 percent of many species of flore and fauna. With the illegal logging, those poor things don’t have any place to live on.
• Global warming, with the trees gone, the weather keeps heating up and causing the large issue of this century, global warming. Global warming also can cause another disaster, which is the melting of ice in the Poles, causing water uprising around the world.

Prevention

Of course with all this happening, there sould be a prevention ways. People of Indonesia is actually care about this and try to make some changes here and there. The first way is by telling or socializing the need to stop illegal logging and loving the forest to the people in this nation and around the globe. Sharing means caring, right? The next way is fully supported by the government, which is the additional forest police and army, the new ones that more stable, more dedicate, and ready to protect the forest. And the last one is streghtening the laws about forest in Indonesia, which we hope can give the actors behind it a decent punishment.

After knowing about the bad effects of Illegal logging in Indonesia, what do you want to do know? Share your opinion in the comment sections about this, and also don’t forget to share the information to the world about how bad the situation is if illegal logging still becoming a daily routine. Thank you, have a nice day.