The provincial government of north Sulawesi applied the Conflict
Resolution approach in regard to Forestry law breaking especially illegal
logging and deforestation. The government’s policy to overcome forest conflict
must not be off balance. The justice and welfare aspects especially for the
communities around the forest location must balance the criminal law. “The
communities need to strive to survive while they have no land, so they took the
forest; such is tolerable” Herry Rottensulu, head of the forestry division of
the North Sulawesi province disclosed to business news [30/4].
However, forest destruction must not be organized. Moreover if it leads
to illegal logging. The modus of such activity were normally tree axing and
wood collecting. Such is not allowed, although in reality such were inevitable,
not just in North Sulawesi.”
Forest destruction often occurred because of the criminal back up. The
communities were permitted to take wood, but it must not be in collaboration
with stolen wood collectors as criminal buyers. “If logs were bought by the
collectors, we will crack them down!”
The exploitation of protected forest must pass permit procedures before
changing status into production forest. Permit could only be issued by the
ministry of forestry. Permitting process was also not delegated to governors
and mayors. “Only the minister’s signature is valid, not governors or regents”
Herry said.
The forestry law underscored that the ministry of forestry of RI had the
authority to manage forest re-functioning. “So the agriculture law needed to be
revised while the law on deforestation is not even passed yet.”
The provincial authorities also saw that each time there was provincial
election, the case of wood looting surfaced. Even in the 2014 election it could
have its effect on execution of utilization of forest assets as the state’s
property. “However not all cases were approached by criminal law. We can deal
with them by administrative law. Toward election normally forest cases emerge
once more.”
The status and function of forest was the state’s forest. Such was in accordance
with the spirit of the forestry law. Production forest, protected forest were
normally marked by forest boundaries. The ministry of forestry was directly
assigned to settle the status and function of forest. “We are only
administrator of the provincial government”
Production forest was definitely for production activities. The
communities continued to migrate from the villages to cities for various
reasons including school, many of them were doing activities in the forest. One
of the ways to project and to safeguard the forest was that all stakeholders
must sit together and talk to determine forest boundaries. “We have talked to
the parliament. In regard to provincial authority over the forest, there would
soon be certification program, so there will be certainty of forest borders and
forest damaging could be prevented.”
The provincial government remained to prioritized forest and soil
rehabilitation program. The problem of dry soil, inside or outside forest areas
was homework for the governors. Dry land might cause landslide. This often
occurred, taking many lives. In relation to the land and forest rehabilitation
program, the governors would adopt a new policy; they would set up a counseling
team for forest and land rehabilitation. “I happen to be the secretary. We
would propose that illegal logging be tackled by the coordinated team safeguard
the forest. We will involve the forestry institution, the army and the police.
We have been securing the forest since last month.”
The forest and land rehabilitation program must be accompanied by
controlling, or else al programs underway would be useless. It was just like
the governors trying to stop illegal logging, but the doers broke another
place. “One whole closed, another hole opened.”
With the formation of the counseling team, the land rehabilitation and
development could use APBN and APBN budget. The impact was that the provinces
succeeded in planting 15, 2 trees in 2011. In the following years, the number
of trees increased to 18 million. The provincial government involved various
organizations, NGO’s and religious groups. “We of concerned about forestry
affairs because in case of rain there is the risk of land slide. We are now
preparing RTRW space planning involving the government from central to local.”
(SS)
Business News - May 03,2013
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