Strengthening the Law of Enforcement to Affirm Persecution towards the Suspect of Illegal Logging in Indonesia

Indonesia is a country that nominated as the “mega diverse” country because Indonesia has the largest forest with the various biodiversity in the world. Ironically, in recent years Indonesia experienced many losses in term of trees and woods.  The fact says that Indonesia bereave 684,000 hectares of forest due to illegal logging, forest fires, forest violation, and forest alteration by the year (Hendra). Furthermore, it would bring more harm than good for other living things such as animal, trees, and other creature that currently stay in the forest due to the losses of the trees as their living habitat. In addition, illegal logging can destroy the environment slowly and it will impact the cause of the landslide.  According to the data, from the Global Forest Resources Assessment, Indonesia was categorized as a second highest ranked in the world for forest loss after Brazil (FRA). In fact, the illegal logging in Indonesia is one of the most common issues that very difficult to overcome. The illegal logging practice occurs because many foreign or private companies are exploiting forests without permission and smuggling unnoticed by forest inspectors. The role of the inspectors to combat the illegal logging issues has still raised an issue since they hard to maintain and solve the problem. Also, the illegal practice can be happened due to the lack of the law enforcement that has already implemented by the government towards the suspect of illegal logging.

The illegal logging practice is one of the persistence issues in Indonesia and claimed as the organized crime (Chitra). This classified as an organized crime since it was involving multi-stakeholder that working together by running the practice of the illegal logging in very systematical ways. The stakeholder may consist of the intellectual actors and the material actors that work together to run the illegal logging practice. Those actors of illegal logging do not obey the law that has already implemented, and it can lead to the violation. The example of the unethical activities that implemented by the stakeholder is the corruption case between each stakeholder who has an authority to support the illegal logging activities. The corruption case in the forestry activities can happen through the private company that gives an amount of money to the forest officer to hide the true problem about the illegal logging that they conduct. As a result, it only creates a benefit for the illegal logging actors and gives a massive negative impact towards the rest of living thing in the forest and generates negative impact in term of social issues in the society. Due to massive activities that involving the multi-stakeholder, therefore it would be hard to maintain the illegal logging practice in Indonesia. According to that situation, the obstacles that being faced by the government need to be maintained to determine the right strategy to overcome the illegal logging problem in Indonesia.

The negative impacts of the illegal logging can be seen be seen as shreds of evidence that the illegal logging still exists in Indonesia. In addition, the government has been recorded thousands of cases of illegal logging in Indonesia that done on behalf of groups and individuals. According to the offices of forestry, during the first half of 2017 from January to June 1,241 cases of illegal logging are recorded (Djo). The rise of illegal logging in the area exists due to the weak security and lack of supervision from the officer. As a result, it allows the actors of the illegal logging exploit the woods and trees in the forest. The Illegal logging perpetrators can consist of forestry officer and even private companies who have a great desire to gain profit, without spending much money. Unfortunately, the officer who has an authority can be classified as the illegal logging actors since they believe they have a strong authority and abusing their power to support the illegal logging practice. These unethical ways can make illegal logging actors free from legal sanctions. Another actor of illegal logging is a company who works in manufacturing. In general, the reason company does Illegal Logging is to adequate the needs of raw materials. Therefore, based on my perspective, I strongly agree that the suspect of the illegal logging need to be persecuted to give a deterrent punishment because it would bring negative impact towards the environment, economic, and also social aspect of life.

There are several agencies who will oppose my argument regarding the law enforcement against illegal logging actors because this law enforcement will harm them. Company and un-ethical forestry officer are examples of counterparties with law persecution against illegal logging actors. With the implementation of law persecution, the company that implements the illegal logging practice, they will not be able to do massive explosion to the wood in the forest. Consequently, those companies would against the law of enforcement since they experience enormous loss towards the law enforcement. Besides the company, the party that would protest against law enforcement is the forestry officers who cooperate with illegal logging actors. They would protest since they cannot earn more money towards the practice of the illegal logging.

Illegal logging activities have been regulated by law and government in Indonesia. According to law, forestry activity is one of the efforts to protect forests in order to maintain the function of forests sustainably. Conforming to Article 50 clause 1, that states “everyone is prohibited from damaging the infrastructure and means of protection” (UU no 41/1999). The objective of giving severe criminal sanctions to every person who violates the law in this field of forestry is in order to create a deterrent effect for law offenders. The intended deterrent effect is not only to the perpetrators who have committed a forestry crime but to others who have activities in the forestry field to think again to do the unlawful act because of heavy punishment sanction. Besides that, the provisions of Article 50 clause 2 state that “Everyone is prohibited from damaging forest protection facilities and infrastructure and any person granted a regional use permit, environmental service utilization license, timber and non-timber forest product utilization permit, and timber and non-timber forest product collection permits, are prohibited from engaging in activities that cause forest destruction” (UU no 41/1999). Based on those two laws it indicates that the government already mention clearly that, the practice of illegal logging must be punished and giving the punishment for the suspect of illegal logging is ethical way according to the law that has already mentioned.

The negative impact that caused by the illegal logging can be classified into three parts such an as an environment, economic, and also social aspect of life. To begin with, the negative impact that can be caused by the illegal logging would hamper the environmental aspect. The negative impacts of illegal logging that can be generated on the environment are the loss of soil fertility, the degradation of water quality, and the extinction of biological diversity. The destruction of soil fertility is due to forests in the crops of trees, this causes the soil absorbs too much sunlight to become very dry and arid (Jong). In addition, rain can sweep away the nutrients from the soil. Therefore, when the soil has lost a lot of nutrients, then reforestation becomes a difficult thing to do and the soil fertility can be disrupted. In addition, water quality will become polluted as this is done when trees are felled and the area becomes arid, so nothing else helps the soil absorb more water, thereby, eventually leading to a decrease in water resources. In addition to destroying soil fertility and reducing water quality, illegal logging can also cause the extinction of biodiversity.

The social impacts of illegal logging can be seen from the breaking of the emotional connection of the local community towards their environment.  In addition, the Illegal logging can cause disasters such as large landslides that will devastate the soil. So that the local community would experience huge negative impact and can destroy their homes. As a result, they will be losses their homes, families, and their livelihoods. The illegal logging also would eliminate and hamper the local community occupation. Not only that, the social impact that can be induced by illegal logging will indirectly hurt the government. So, the government should be responsible for the consequences of this illegal logging.

According to the minister of forestry, the losses caused by illegal logging are 30 trillion per year (Djo). The economic impacts emerging from illegal logging are not only financial losses but more impact on the economy in a broader sense, such as the loss of opportunities to exploit the diversity of products in the future. Illegal logging activities also have a great influence on the macro condition of the State's economy. Large log smuggling presses the domestic wood product industry in two ways. First, there is a shortage of supply of industrial raw materials and both international price pressures. The existence of illegal logging practices will cause obstacles to economic growth in Indonesia in terms of export activities. If timber continues to be logged, it will affect the number of Indonesian timber exports so that the country's revenues will be reduced economically.

                                    Source : Eco-Business.com

I believe that the actors of the illegal logging must be punished based on the law that has already implemented in Indonesia. It is a good solution in order to prevent and to maintain the current status quo that related to the illegal logging practice in Indonesia and to create a better sustainable management forest. In my opinion, the punishment for the actors of the illegal logging must be reinforced by strengthening the law of enforcement. Therefore, I strongly agree with the law for the perpetrators of illegal logging that only gain benefits for their private company with unethical way. By conducting the law of persecution towards the human being, they would be able to minimize the illegal logging issue that exists in Indonesia.

Work Citied

Chitra, Josephine, and Kenny Cetera. “Indonesia Has a Carrot to End Illegal Logging; Now It Needs a Stick.” World Resource Institute, World Resource Institute, 3 Jan. 2018, www.wri.org/blog/2018/01/indonesia-has-carrot-end-illegal-logging-now-it-needs-stick. Web.10 May 2018

Djo. “Negara Rugi Rp 83 Miliar/Hari Akibat Illegal Logging.” DetikNews, DetikNews, 29 July 2016, news.detik.com/berita/d-1409542/-negara-rugi-rp-83-miliarhari-akibat-illegal-logging. Web 12 May 2018. Web.12 May 2018

Hendra. “Setiap Tahun, Hutan Indonesia Hilang 684,000 Hektar .” Kompas.com, Kompas.com, 30 Aug. 2018,regional.kompas.com/read/2016/08/30/15362721/setiap.tahun.hutan.indonesia.hilang.684.000.hektar.  Web.12 May 2018

Jong, Hans Nicholas. “Indonesia Thwarts Illegal Logging in South Sumatra.” The Jakarta Post, The Jakarta Post, 21 Feb. 2017, www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/02/21/indonesia-thwarts-illegal-logging-in-south-sumatra.html. Web. 10 May 2018. Web.10 May 2018

Cristianto, Erwin Dwi. “undang-undang republik indonesia nomor 41 tahun 1999”. HMU, HMU 2014, huma.or.id/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/UU_No_41_Tahun_1999.pdf. Web 11 May 2018