The Weekend Australian

Death penalty faces illegal loggers

JAKARTA: Indonesia will punish illegal loggers with the death penalty in an effort to halt the widespread timber smuggling that is threatening to wipe out huge forests in Kalimantan and north Sumatra within the decade.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri will sign laws next week allowing capital punishment for anyone convicted of illegal logging, including corrupt police who turn a blind eye to forest clearance.

"We need these laws because logging is an extraordinary crime that needs an extraordinary measure," forestry department director-general Koes Saparjadi said yesterday.

"There are criminal charges for those who cut, transport, finance or organise illegal logging. The death penalty will be implemented for those who finance or organise logging."

Indonesia holds the world's second-largest reserves of natural forest and is the biggest exporter of plywood, as well as being a significant producer of tropical hardwoods.

But it is losing an estimated 3.8 million hectares of tropical forests a year to loggers, with more than 90 per cent of the timber cut illegally and sold in Malaysia, China, Japan, India and Europe.

Greenpeace recently sent the Rainbow Warrior to Kalimantan to document the problem and released photographic evidence of the illegal logging, including kilometres of cut timber floating on two Kalimantan rivers awaiting sawmilling.

The timber was felled in the nearby 400,000ha Tanjung Puting National Park, which is home to a large community of endangered orangutans.

Along with new laws, the Government has also set up a taskforce to work with police and help curb a trade that robs Indonesia of timber worth up to $4.73 billion a year.

"We have prepared officers and investigators," Mr Koes said. "Our target is not only the illegal loggers, but also police and army officers who give out false documents, and officers who take no action after receiving reports of illegal logging."

The new penalties follow a warning by Ms Megawati that corruption was making the fight against illegal logging almost impossible. She said that even if the corrupt officials and police were removed, there was no guarantee their replacements would be any tougher on the loggers.