RELAXATION OF LEGAL TIMBER SCHEME WEAKENS FOREST GOVERNANCE REFORM

LONDON/JAKARTA: The last-minute exemption of 15 product groups from Indonesia’s timber legality verification system threatens to block EU market access for these products, to delay or sabotage a long-negotiated EU-Indonesia timber trade agreement and undermine Indonesia’s forest industry reputation, NGOs have warned.

 

The alert from Indonesia’s Independent Forest Monitoring Network (JPIK) and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) followings the October 19 passage of Trade Minister Regulation No 89/M-DAG/PER/10/2015, which substantially weakens the SVLK.

 

Under Indonesia’s Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), all wood products exporters’ operations must be audited for compliance against a legality standard covering raw material inputs and factory or trade practices. Positive audit results are rewarded with so-called VLK certificates enabling them to acquire a “V-Legal document”, an export license legally required to export wood products.

 

While this system applies to exports to all markets, it is also the foundation of a long-negotiated Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between Indonesia and the EU. Once the VPA is activated, timber products without associated V-Legal documents will be rejected at EU ports, and cannot be sold on the EU market. Similarly, products accompanies by V-Legal documents will also be exempted from the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which prohibits illegal wood in the EU and requires EU companies to conduct due diligence on wood products purchases. As such, V-Legal documents are the crucial key for Indonesian exporters seeking to unlock EU market access.

 

The new regulation permanently exempts all exporters of 15 wood product customs codes (HS Codes) from the requirement to undergo SVLK audits, while maintaining their ability to export. Exempted companies – many of which have multi-million dollar exports – must still use SVLK certified wood but no checks that they do so will be required, providing significant opportunities for laundering uncertified or illegal wood into supply chains. 

 

The Ministry of Trade exemptions have been vociferously opposed by Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry and have similarly prompted the EU’s Ambassador to Indonesia to raised concerns in an October 23 letter to the Trade Minister.

 

“The Trade Minister Regulation introduces structural inconsistencies in Indonesia’s long-term efforts to improve forest governance through implementation of the SVLK and threatens the proposed scope and timeframe for the implementation of the Indonesia-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA),” stated Zainuri Hasyim, JPIK National Coordinator.

 

Faith Doherty, EIA Forest Campaign Team Leader agreed, saying: “The Trade Ministry Regulation introduces an eleventh-hour back door exemption for an elite group of companies with friends in high places. It violates the aims and mechanisms underpinning both the SVLK and the VPA. The consequence is that either the VPA must be re-negotiated, the SVLK licensing system must be re-designed or the exempted companies are structurally blocked from accessing the EU market. This bad regulation – ironically produced to hasten de-regulation – needs to be ammended immediately.”

 

The Indonesian Government is planning to announce VPA implementation as a headline offering at the UN climate change talks in Paris in December at a time when major forest fires in Indonesia have produced more carbon emissions than Japan does in a year and which have on occasion surpassed the daily emissions output of the entire US.  

DIRTY TRICKS OF FORMER TIMBER CROOK’S PALM OIL FIRM THREATENS PRIME ORANGUTAN HABITAT

LONDON: An area of Indonesian rainforest three times the size of Manhattan and home to endangered species such as orangutans and clouded leopards is under threat from a palm oil company run by one of the country’s most notorious former illegal logging kingpins.

 

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its Indonesian partner Jaringan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan Kalimantan Tengah (JPIK Kalteng) have lodged a formal complaint with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) against PT Sawit Sumbermas Sarana (PT SSS) and its subsidiary PT Sawit Mandiri Lestari (PT SML).

 

PT SSS was founded by Abdul Rasyid, whose track record of forest crimes in Central Kalimantan stretches back to the late 1990s; in 2000, he was named by the Indonesian Government as one of the top 18 illegal logging bosses in the country.

 

In a December 2013 warning to potential investors in a US$90 million initial public offering for PT SSS, EIA revealed an independent evaluation of the firm’s prospectus showed illegal clearance of forest areas and direct threats to orangutan habitat posed by planned expansion of the firm’s oil palm plantations.

 

The RSPO complaint addresses failings in the New Planting Procedure of PT SSS subsidiary PT SML which will lead to violations of the RSPO Standard. PT SML claims rights to an oil palm concession located in Kabupaten Lamandau, Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia.

 

EIA Forest Campaigner Tomasz Johnson said: “This is unfortunately yet another case of a palm oil company riding roughshod over regulations and the rights of indigenous people in the area concerned and resorting to a variety of dirty tricks to do it.”

 

The key failures outlined in the complaint are:

• consultations with affected communities did not take place, despite claims that they were undertaken as required;

• High Value Conservation (HCV) areas within the concession were not identified;

• the required HCV Assessment and Social and Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) were seriously flawed and affected communities did not have opportunity to participate in them;

• the AMDAL process was not carried out in accordance with the law;

• PT SML has not yet obtained the permits that are a prerequisite to land clearing.

 

The concession comprises 16,857ha of secondary forest identified as the habitat of the Bornean orangutan, clouded leopard, critically endangered flora and dozens of other endangered species.

 

Jago Wadley, EIA Senior Forest Campaigner, said: “This RSPO grievance will likely add to the reasons that responsible palm oil buyers, investors and financiers are increasingly distancing themselves from the destructive practices exhibited PT SSS. EIA urges all responsible actors in the palm oil value chain to closely examine whether PT SSS and its subsidiaries meet their social and environmental policies or not.”

 

Corrupt cop at large despite being jailed for timber theft

Corrupt Indonesian cop Labora Sitorus, jailed for 15 years for large-scale timber theft, is at large after apparently being allowed to leave prison unescorted to seek medical treatment.

 

The former chief brigadier in Raja Ampat, West Papua, has now been added to a list of West Papua’s most-wanted and a team has been set up by the state prosecutor’s office in Sorong to track him down.

 

Following a legal wrangle over a startlingly lenient first verdict handed down early in 2014 by a court in West Papua, State prosecutors appealed to Indonesia’s Supreme Court and last September Sitorus was sentenced to 15 years and ordered to pay Rp5 billion in fines.

 

However, The Jakarta Post reported yesterday (Thursday) that when the state prosecutor’s office sought to formally execute the Supreme Court’s verdict, Sitorus was not to be found in Sorong Prison.

 

Prison head Maliki Hasan reportedly stated Sitorus was allowed to leave the facility to seek medical treatment in March 2014 but did not return. Hasan added that his predecessor had “never summoned” Sitorus when he failed to return from hospital treatment.

 

The corrupt lawman was originally charged with illegal logging, fuel smuggling and money laundering but in February last year was found guilty of just one charge – illegal logging – and sentenced to a mere two years in prison with a US$4,000 fine.

 

He was acquitted of money laundering, despite evidence showing US$127 million passed through his accounts.

 

An initial appeal filed by prosecutors led to Sitorus being convicted of money laundering and jailed for eight years by the High Court of Jayapura, Papua, on May 2.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released video footage in May 2013 of illegal loggers harvesting merbau and other species for Sitorus’ timber company, PT Rotua, from forests on Batanta island in the ecologically outstanding Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua – a potential World Heritage site candidate.

 

PT Rotua also reportedly received timber from the forests of Sorong, Aimas, Bintuni and other regions of West Papua.

 

In releasing the footage, EIA called on the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) – Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission – to investigate police corruption in the case, following the earlier collapse of similar cases of police involvement in illegal merbau trade in West Papua.

 

The Sitorus case raised significant doubts as to the effectiveness of Indonesia’s timber legality assurance system, intended to eradicate illegal logging in the country and maintain access to environmentally sensitive markets which have banned illegal timber imports, such as the EU, USA and Australia.

 

His absconding from prison now raises equally significant concerns about police impunity in Indonesia’s Justice system.

 

EIA Senior Campaigner Jago Wadley said: “When convicted timber crooks are allowed to simply waltz out of prison and remain at large for 10 months without their absence being reported, and when that convicted criminal is a policeman accused of bribing senior police officials, Indonesia looks like a mafia state.”

 

PALM OIL PLANTATION CRIME DRIVES MASSIVE ILLEGAL LOGGING IN INDONESIA

JAKARTA: The clear-cutting of forests to make way for oil palm plantations is driving a wave of illegal logging in Indonesia, fundamentally undermining efforts to bring much-needed reform to the nation’s forestry and timber sectors.  

A new report released today by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Permitting Crime: How palm oil expansion drives illegal logging in Indonesia, reveals how a widespread culture of corruption and poor law enforcement is generating a flood of illicit timber as plantations surge into frontier forests. 

In-depth case studies of blatant violations of licensing procedures and other laws in Central Kalimantan – a hotspot for forest crime – detailed in the report include:

 •           outright violations of plantation licensing, timber and environmental regulations by firms clear-cutting forests in some of Indonesia’s richest tracts of rainforest;

 •           clear links between a series of palm oil concessions, a corrupt regent and one of the highest-profile Indonesian political graft cases of recent years;

 •           attempts by a palm oil firm to pay US$45,000 to police to bury an investigation into its illegal operations;

 •           local governments selling-out customary communities and facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars of their resources to private firms.

 The report explains how almost all palm plantations nationwide are willfully evading Indonesia’s Timber Legality Verification System (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu, or SVLK), a mandatory law implemented in September 2010 as a cornerstone of efforts to ensure only legal timber is produced in the country.

 “Illegal logging in oil palm concessions is out of control and Indonesia’s revamped timber laws have completely failed to rein it in,” said EIA Forest Campaigner Tomasz Johnson.

 “Our investigations have unearthed some of the worst cases, but we should be clear that levels of legal compliance are critically low across the sector. We have found that local governments are colluding with companies to fast-track the permit process. The result is that these clear-cuts do not identify or mitigate social and environmental impacts as they are legally required to do.”

 In November 2014, newly inaugurated President Joko Widodo acknowledged the threat, stating: “It must be stopped. We mustn’t allow our tropical rainforest to disappear because of monoculture plantations like oil palm.”

 EIA’s report makes clear recommendations for the Government of Indonesia to enforce existing laws and purge oil palm and timber corruption.

EIA Senior Forest Campaigner Jago Wadley said: “The Ministry of Environment & Forests needs to immediately force mandatory legality audits of all logging in palm plantations and revoke permits where firms resist them. Similarly, it must ensure land clearance ceases in all concessions found non-compliant with the 2014 SVLK legality standard, seize related timber and initiate legal proceedings.”

EIA also calls for a Task Force to be established to examine and prosecute corruption in plantation licensing nationwide, beginning with firms named in the report, and further urges the Government to cease allocating oil palm concessions in forests.

PERMITTING CRIME: HOW PALM OIL EXPANSION DRIVES ILLEGAL LOGGING IN INDONESIA- Press Conference

Tuesday, December 16, 2014/ 11am WIB (4am GMT)/ at Seribu Rasa Restaurant, Jl. Haji Agus Salim 128, Menteng, Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia

A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Permitting Crime: How Palm Oil Expansion Drives Illegal Logging in Indonesia, reveals how widespread illegality and corruption in oil palm plantation licensing in Indonesia is producing large volumes of illegal timber from clear-cut deforestation authorised under IPK (Izin Pemanfaatan Kayu) permits.

Government records have likely understated such timber production by at least 40 million cubic meters from 2000-10 and the problem persists.

The Government of Indonesia’s flagship forestry and timber trade reforms, notably the SVLK (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu), have completely failed to address the issue – despite underpinning a bilateral trade agreement with the European Union.

Permitting Crime: How Palm Oil Expansion Drives Illegal Logging in Indonesia will be released at the press conference.

The report features detailed case studies exposing named companies, directors, owners and operators of rogue palm oil firms in Central Kalimantan and highlights weaknesses in Indonesia’s anti-illegal logging regime in a bid to pressure the Government into enforcing its own laws.

INDONESIAN COP IS JAILED FOR EIGHT YEARS FOR MAJOR TIMBER SMUGGLING RACKET

LONDON: Timber-smuggling Indonesian police officer Labora Sitorus has been jailed for eight years after a legal appeal overturned the shockingly lenient verdict handed down earlier this year by a court in West Papua.

 

Low-ranking Sitorus was originally charged with illegal logging, fuel smuggling and money laundering but the Sorong-based officer was in February found guilty of just one charge – illegal logging – and was sentenced to just two years in prison with a US$4,000 fine.

 

He was acquitted of money laundering, despite evidence showing US$127 million passed through his accounts.

 

An appeal filed by the Prosecutors trying the case has now led to Sitorus being convicted of money laundering and jailed for eight years by the High Court of Jayapura, Papua, on May 2.

 

In May 2013, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released video footage of illegal loggers harvesting merbau and other species for Sitorus’ timber company, PT Rotua, from forests on Batanta island in the ecologically outstanding Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua – a potential World Heritage site candidate.

 

PT Rotua also reportedly received timber from the forests of Sorong, Aimas, Bintuni and other regions of West Papua.

 

In releasing the footage, EIA called on the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) – Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission – to investigate police corruption in the case, following the earlier collapse of similar cases of police involvement in illegal merbau trade in West Papua.

 

Faith Doherty, EIA Forest Team Leader, today welcomed the stiffer penalty: “Finally, the court has responded as it should. This allows for the authorities to seize the assets of both Sitorus and his company.

 

“In September 2013, when prosecutors were given the police dossier that allowed Sitorus to be charged, the issue of corruption was conspicuous by its absence. However, this new verdict will allow the authorities to investigate the entire criminal syndicate, including the 33 police officers whose bank accounts were originally featured in the dossier.”

 

The Sitorus case has cast significant doubt on the effectiveness of Indonesia’s timber legality assurance system, intended to eradicate illegal logging in the country and maintain access to environmentally sensitive markets which have banned illegal timber imports, such as the EU, USA and Australia.

 

Doherty added: “Police corruption has long facilitated the looting of Indonesia’s forests and undermined efforts to reform the timber trade. For more than a decade, EIA has campaigned for rigorous enforcement and the prosecution of rotten apples such as Labora Sitorus.”

Flawed court case highlights failings of legal timber system- Indonesia

The shockingly lenient verdict handed down by a West Papua court to a police officer charged with illegal logging, fuel smuggling and money laundering is an appalling indictment of Indonesia’s utter failure to tackle corruption within the forestry sector and the strongest evidence of a cover-up that the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has witnessed for a long time.

 

Labora Sitorus, a low-ranking police officer based in Sorong West Papua, was earlier this week found guilty of just one of the charges – illegal logging – and was sentenced to two years in prison and fined a mere US$4,000.

 

He was acquitted of money laundering, despite evidence showing US$127 million passed through his accounts, some of which was connected to shipments of timber that the judge has now ruled to have been illegally taken.

 

In January 2013, enforcement officials seized 2,264 cubic metres of merbau in 115 containers that had been shipped from Sorong to Surabaya in East Java, Indonesia’s largest timber trading port. The total value of this illegal timber is estimated at US$20,370,600 (current market prices for merbau are estimated at US$900 per cubic metre).

 

Further investigations led the Financial Transaction Monitoring Centre (PPATK) to reveal that Sitorus had paid up to US$1million to local, regional and national police officials between January and March 2013.

 

In September 2013, when prosecutors were given the dossier from the police that allowed Sitorus to be charged, the issue of corruption was conspicuous by its absence. By neglecting to charge Sitorus with corruption, 33 police officers who allegedly received money from Sitorus were ignored.

 

This is not the first time that a case involving police in Papua has failed to convict influential defendants. Police Commissioner Marthen Renouw worked as a police officer in Papua for 29 years, amassing a position of power stretching from the capital of Jayapura to Sorong, where Labora Sitorus is also based. Renouw was arrested in April 2005 during the unprecedented enforcement operation codenamed OHL 11 and was transferred to Jakarta for questioning.

 

Again, PPATK detected a series of suspicious transactions involving five bank accounts. As in the case of Sitorus, evidence was passed onto police to follow up but only one bank account was scrutinised. With further evidence proving that Renouw had received money from an illegal logging syndicate while he was supposedly leading operations against timber theft in the area, the Attorney General’s office charged Renouw under anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws. Renouw was brought to trial in November 2006 in his power base of Jayapura. He was acquitted of all charges.

 

EIA and partner Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) unreservedly condemn this latest blatant manipulation of the law by the police, along with the risible verdict from the panel of judges who have completely failed to bring to justice all those responsible who profited from this forest crime. EIA/FWI is also concerned that the SVLK, Indonesia’s new mandatory traceability scheme intended to ensure the legality of all materials in Indonesia’s domestic and export timber markets, was insufficiently robust to stop this illegal act from occurring in the first place. 

 

The company responsible for the illegal logging and transport of the 115 containers of Merbau – PT Rotua – was ultimately able to sell its illegal timber to exporting companies certified as legally compliant under the SVLK. None have been investigated or prosecuted.

With Sitorus now guilty of illegal logging, EIA/FWI believe all his clients should have their SVLK certificates revoked or, at the very least, be re-audited. It is highly likely that all the illegal merbau sold on to traders by PT Rotua has been or will be exported abroad. This is in direct violation of Indonesian law. 

Apart from the SVLK independent monitors, the wider SVLK system and stakeholders have played no role at all in preventing this multi-million dollar forest crime. Not one company that dealt in and exported Sitorus’s illegal timber is being investigated and prosecuted, including Sitorus’ own timber company, which has been allowed to continue operating with apparent impunity.

 

The deeply compromised case against Labora Sitorus and the subsequent failure of the judiciary is a major warning that, despite all of the commitments and agreements the Government has made to combat illegal logging and the associated illegal trade, Indonesia has still to prove its commitment to enforce the law against forest crime.

 

EIA has been aware of Sitorus and his illegal activities since 2009, when investigators documented loggers illegally harvesting merbau trees without Government approval. You can view and embed the footage at https://vimeo.com/67142131.

 

FORMER TIMBER THEFT KINGPIN’S PALM OIL FIRM A THREAT TO ORANGUTAN HABITAT – AND INVESTORS

LONDON: Potential investors should steer clear of a US$90 million initial public offering (IPO) in an Indonesian palm oil company due to the involvement of a former illegal logging kingpin and the potential impact on precious orangutan habitat, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) warned today.

The company, Sawit Sumbermas Sarana (SSMS), currently holds a land bank of 78,000 hectares in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan and is seeking investment to expand its palm oil plantation area through an IPO on the Jakarta stock exchange scheduled for today (December 12).

The founder of SSMS is Abdul Rasyid, who currently controls all of the shares in the company through family members. Rasyid has a track record of forest crimes in Central Kalimantan stretching back to the late 1990s; in 2000 he was named by the Indonesian Government as one of the top 18 illegal logging bosses in the country.

EIA first documented Rasyid’s illegal logging activities in 1999, tracking valuable logs stolen from Tanjung Puting National Park to sawmills owned by his Tanjung Lingga Group of companies.

On a follow-up investigation in early 2000, an EIA staff member and her Indonesian colleague were abducted and assaulted at gunpoint by Tanjung Lingga staff.

In 2001, three cargo ships carrying 25,000 cubic metres of illegal logs were intercepted by the Indonesian navy off the coast of Central Kalimantan. Investigations revealed that the logs were owned by Tanjung Lingga subsidiaries. In 2003 another shipment of illegal logs linked to Tanjung Lingga was detained in Vietnam.

EIA Campaign Director Julian Newman said: “Rasyid has tried to airbrush out his past as a major illegal logging boss and is now seeking respectability to expand his palm oil business. He made his first fortune through massive timber theft and is seeking to grow his wealth through further destruction of Central Kalimantan’s dwindling forests.”

In addition to Rasyid’s murky past, an independent evaluation of SSMS’s prospectus reveals illegal clearance of forest areas and direct threats to orangutan habitat posed by planned expansion of the firm’s oil palm plantations.

The study, carried out by Profundo, found that between 2003-12 SSMS cleared 10,784 hectares of forest for plantations despite not having central government permission for most of the clearance, in direct contravention of the 1999 Forestry Act. Also, 44 per cent of the company’s land bank overlaps high conversation value forest which is potential orangutan habitat; two-thirds of this forest had already been cleared by 2012.

Further expansion of SSMS is threatened by recent commitments made by two of its main buyers to avoid crude palm oil derived from conversion of high conservation value forests.

Newman added: “Given Rasyid’s past activities and the current threat posed by SSMS to vital orangutan habitat, when it comes to the imminent IPO it is clear case of ‘investor beware’.” 

INDONESIA TIMBER LAW A TEST OF GOVERNMENT’S RESOLVE TO ROOT OUT MASSIVE CORRUPTION

LONDON: As Asia’s first-ever Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) to combat illegal logging was signed into law today (September 30, 2013), the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) cautioned that it would also serve as a test of official resolve to stamp out serious corruption in Indonesia’s forest sector.

 

The historic timber trade agreement was formally initialed in 2011 between the European Union (EU) and Government of Indonesia but is only now coming into legal effect.

 

The VPA aims to verify the legal export of timber licensed from an Indonesian timber legality assurance system, known as the Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), and EU Customs authorities will prevent any unlicensed Indonesian products from entering EU markets.

 

EIA has been at the forefront of efforts to combat the devastation of Indonesia’s forests by illegal logging for more than a decade, exposing the criminals involved, lobbying for legislative change and building the capacity of Indonesian civil society.

 

Faith Doherty, head of EIA’s Forest Campaign, today said: “It’s been a long, hard journey for all concerned to arrive at this point and we are encouraged to see the VPA come into effect; in particular, we welcome the multi-stakeholder process and the formal role for Indonesia’s civil society in monitoring the compliance of the country’s timber industry.

 

“This VPA will dovetail with the EU’s existing Timber Regulation, which came into effect in March this year to ban stolen timber from EU markets, and we further congratulate the EU on its long commitment to fight illegal logging and to curb its consumption of stolen timber.

 

“There are still issues to be addressed within Indonesia and while this signing is a significant step forward, it does not mean that there is not a substantial amount of work still to be done.”

 

Doherty stressed EIA will remain vigilant in its role as a watchdog of illegal logging and related corruption, and warned the VPA will effectively test the resolve of the Government of Indonesia in tackling corruption.

 

“The ongoing investigation into the activities of corrupt cop-turned-timber smuggler Labora Sitorus serves as a high-profile test case of Indonesia’s commitment to meaningfully address the root cause of illegal logging – corruption,” added Doherty.

 

“Its conclusion will define the next steps to be taken in the international fight against illegal logging and the ruination of the world’s last precious forests.”

INDONESIA’S ANTI-CORRUPTION TEAM TO PROBE TIMBER SMUGGLING COP’S US$1m ‘GIFTS’ TO POLICE

LONDON: The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today welcomed a legal probe by Indonesia’s national anti-corruption agency into million-dollar payments by a rogue cop-turned-timber smuggler to local, regional and national police officials.

 

The announcement follows revelations that mid-ranking Papua police officer Labora Sitorus transferred about US$1 million (10 billion Indonesian rupiah) in multiple payments to police chiefs between January and April 2013.

 

As a key timber smuggling kingpin, Sitorus controlled illegal merbau wood trade in West Papua, Indonesia’s last significant forested region.

 

His network transferred approximately US$100,000 to the national police headquarters in Jakarta and a similar sum to the Papua province police chief. Further multiple payments amounting to hundreds of thousands of US dollars were made to local chiefs of police in Raja Ampat, Sorong, Aimas and Bintuni regencies – all sources of the illegal timber smuggled by Sitorus’ gang.

 

Sitorus’ representatives claim the transfers are “gratuities”, but the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) – Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission – has pledged to investigate the payments as clear indications of high-level police corruption. 

 

In May this year, EIA released video footage of illegal loggers harvesting merbau and other species for Labora Sitorus’ timber company, PT Rotua, from forests on Batanta island in the ecologically outstanding Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua – a potential World Heritage site candidate. PT Rotua also reportedly received timber from the forests of Sorong, Aimas, Bintuni and other regions of West Papua.

 

In releasing the footage, EIA called on the KPK to investigate police corruption in the case, following the collapse of previous similar cases of police involvement in illegal merbau trade in West Papua.

 

Faith Doherty, head EIA’s Forest Campaign, said: “We warmly welcome the KPK’s intervention in the Labora Sitorus case. Police corruption has facilitated the illegal decimation of Indonesia’s forests for years and undermined the Government’s wider efforts to reform the timber trade. EIA has been campaigning for real enforcement against those such as Labora Sitorus for over a decade; perhaps, with the KPK involvement, justice may finally be served in this one case.”

 

The Sitorus case casts significant doubts on the effectiveness of a timber legality assurance system designed to eradicate illegal logging in the country and maintain access to environmentally sensitive markets which have banned illegal timber imports, such as the EU, USA and Australia. Indonesian and EU experts are currently evaluating the legality scheme. 

The financial transfers to police also coincided with large shipments of illegal merbau wood from Sitorus’ Papuan network to companies in Surabaya, East Java – the country’s main timber processing and export hub. Several companies receiving Sitorus’ illegal timber are in turn known to supply world markets such as China, Australia and the EU.

 

Merbau, an increasingly endangered species used for flooring, outdoor decking, and other uses, has become a mainstay of Indonesia’s billion-dollar timber exports in recent years as other species have been logged-out across the country.

 

Doherty added: “Indonesia’s international timber customers, particularly the EU, Australia and the US, can have little confidence in forest sector reform until corrupt police profiting from illegal logging and timber smuggling are seen to be held accountable. Indonesia’s people, forests and biodiversity have a bleak future if the rule of the jungle continues to trump the rule of law.”

 

Police corruption remains a significant barrier to reform and the establishment of the rule of law in Indonesia, and many commentators see the KPK as the only hope of cleaning up the police.

 

In May 2013, National Police Commissioner M. Nasser criticised Sitorus’ arrest, claiming it was “reasonable” that US$150 million had passed through accounts linked to the local policeman and his timber business in recent years. 

CAUGHT ON FILM: ROGUE INDONESIAN COP’S ILLEGAL LOGGING OPERATIONS

Government of Indonesia urged to take action

 

LONDON: A video of illegal logging operations in the ecologically outstanding Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua has today been released by environmentalists following the arrest of rogue Indonesian cop-turned-smuggler Labora Sitorus, who financed and coordinated timber theft on a huge scale.

 

Filmed near the northern coast of Batanta Island in April 2009 by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the footage documents loggers illegally felling trees without relevant Government approvals, before sawing them into planks and posts to await collection by boats at the beach.

 

The loggers told EIA investigators their operation was illegal but that it exclusively supplied Labora Sitorus, who they knew to be a policeman. The loggers also admitted they had been running nine chainsaws across multiple sites around the western tip of Batanta for at least 18 months, indicating Sitorus’ involvement in illegal timber had been going on since at least 2007.

 

With each chainsaw producing about 1.5m_­³ of sawn timber a day, the gang featured in the film was likely supplying Sitorus’ business with at least 4,000m³ of timber a year.  Loggers also trapped rare bird species for subsequent sale.

 

Sitorus’ recent arrest followed a report to the Papua police from the Indonesia Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) that more than US$150m had passed through bank accounts linked to his businesses in the past five years.

 

The money laundering report followed the May 2013 seizure of 2,264m³ of valuable illegal merbau wood in 115 containers in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia’s biggest timber trade hub; all were supplied by Sitorus’ family timber company, PT Rotua. A further 1,500 merbau logs have also been seized in Papua, and Batanta island has been named as a major source of Sitorus’ illicit timber.

 

EIA is aware that environmental activists engaged in Government-recognised independent monitoring of Indonesia’s timber trade have been passing information to authorities regarding Sitorus’ activities for some time, leading to the timber seizures and the PPATK probe.

 

The timing of the case is interesting. Indonesia is currently rolling out a long-awaited but potentially revolutionary timber traceability scheme in an effort to assure international markets it has a handle on rampant illegal logging.

 

The Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) aims to ensure Indonesia can supply markets that have prohibited illegal timber, including the EU, US, and Australia. The SVLK became mandatory for exporters in January 2013, and the EU Timber Regulation came into force in March 2013.

 

EIA Forests Campaign head Faith Doherty said: “It is imperative that Indonesia now properly investigates and prosecutes this case, including all the actors in the timber chain downstream from Sitorus and any protectors in the police or other authorities who have allowed his crimes to go unpunished for so long.”

 

The bulk of Sitorus’ timber seized in Surabaya was destined for China, although EIA has seen official trade data showing that known buyers of merbau from Sitorus’ company have subsequently shipped tens of millions of dollars worth of merbau to buyers in Europe, Australia and the US in recent years.

 

Doherty added: “Long-term police involvement in major illegal logging and export-oriented timber trade is of great concern to EU importers of Indonesian wood products, and no doubt to the EU itself which has been very supportive of Indonesia in the development of the SVLK.“

 

Doherty has been directly involved in the development of the SVLK with Indonesian civil society organisations since its inception.

 

“Just as the EU Timber Regulation comes into force, the Sitorus case makes it difficult to believe all is well in Indonesia’s timber trade,” she said. “It is imperative Indonesia protects the reputational gains the SVLK is bringing it by showing the world it can successfully prosecute this blatant case of police corruption.”

 

Papua’s merbau wood has been particularly targeted by illegal loggers and EIA has exposed numerous smuggling syndicates since 2005. However, the failure of a previous major case of police involvement in illegal logging – that of Marthen Renouw, also in the Sorong region of Papua, in 2006 – raises credible concerns that Sitorus may get off lightly in Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt judicial system, despite a Presidential Decree mandating various Government ministries to coordinate the prosecution of timber crimes in Papua.

 

Last week the head of PPATK confirmed he had identified transactions from Sitorus’ accounts to senior police officials.

 

EIA’s Doherty also stressed the need for the Government to ensure the security of formally sanctioned, independent timber trade monitors and whistleblowers, some of whom have received threats since the Sitorus case became public.

Indonesia: Indigenous peoples now rightfully own their lands

In a landmark court ruling in Indonesia, the customary lands of indigenous people have been removed from State ownership.

The ruling, given in a judicial review of a 1999 forest law which was sought by Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN, or the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago), returns the rights over customary forests to the indigenous communities which have traditionally inhabited them – rights appropriated by the State through the 1999 law.

See  http://www.eia-international.org/indonesia-indigenous-peoples-now-rightfully-own-their-lands.

RSPO ORDERS ROGUE PALM OIL FIRM TO STOP CLEARING INDIGENOUS TERRITORY IN MUARA TAE

LONDON: The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has upheld a complaint lodged by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) against a rogue palm oil company and has ordered it to immediately stop clearing customary forests in Indonesian Borneo.

Singapore-listed First Resources Ltd must now cease all developments in the concession in Kutaia Barat regency, East Kalimantan, until the conflict with the Dayak Benuaq community of Muara Tae is resolved.

The RSPO move vindicates the position of the Dayak Benuaq, who have protested against the clearing of their land and have never consented to the development.

EIA lodged a formal grievance against First Resources on October 17, 2012, providing evidence that it had breached a range of the RSPO’s principles and criteria (P&Cs). The grievance outlined how First Resources had violated the New Planting Procedures, which demand that any company obtain the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected communities before beginning land clearing.

Fraudulent documents submitted to the RSPO claimed FPIC had been obtained, but in a series of meetings with the company the Dayak Benuaq have repeatedly stated their objection to the plantation and their desire to continue using the forest.

The RSPO has upheld the grievance in its entirety and ordered First Resources, as an RSPO member, to cease operating until a number of conditions have been met. This includes working with EIA to produce an action plan to arrive at an “amicable solution” to the dispute with the Dayak Benuaq.

The company has already cleared a substantial area within the customary territory of Muara Tae, including destruction of forests protecting the Utak Melinau river and farmland. This has incurred substantial livelihood losses and has damaged a principal source of water for the village.

Any solution to the dispute must include the restitution of all annexed lands and an appropriate compensation mechanism to mitigate the damage already done.

In the meantime, the onus is on First Resources to observe the instructions of the RSPO if it is not to incur further damage to its reputation.

The RSPO’s grievance panel, which decided on the complaint, held that there is evidence that First Resources’ failings in this concession were not a “one-off” but may be “systemic in nature” due to similarities with a case in West Kalimantan.

EIA Forests Campaigner Tom Johnson said: “This decision provides some welcome relief for the Dayak Benuaq, who have been under siege from First Resources and those Government agencies the company has been able to mobilise against them.

“The fight is by no means over and EIA, the community and other NGOs will be watching First Resources’ every move. The company must accept and abide by this decision and stop behaving like a gang of thugs – it’s time for First Resources to grow up.”