INDONESIA: WORKING WITH NGOS IN FIGHTING AGAINST FORESTRY CRIMES

INDONESIA: WORKING WITH NGOS IN FIGHTING AGAINST FORESTRY CRIMES

                                                          Written by Maude 

Maude worked as a Junior Professional Consultant (JPC) with the Environment Unit of UNDP Indonesia through the IDDIP and the University of Ottawa in 2017. Below, she shares her experience of working with the UN and more concretely of her work.

We went on a mission to a province situated in the East of the island of Sumatra. The purpose of the mission was to meet NGOs working in the field to ensure that the project that we are working on, the Multi-Door Approach, can effectively enhance the fight against forestry crimes.

Launched by UNDP Indonesia in 2017, the Multi-Door Approach can be understood as the joint investigation of a forestry case that involves several connected crimes such as illegal logging or wildlife trafficking with corruption or money laundering. Thanks to the use of various regulations (environment, forestry, mining, taxation, money laundering, corruption) combined with the multi-law enforcement authority’s cooperation (forestry and justice authorities, customs, anti-corruption units, and police), the case can be investigated from multiple angles, leading to a more effective law enforcement. Therefore, this approach will minimize the possibility of perpetrators' escape from more severe sanctions due to the application of only one regulation or law. 

Many studies demonstrate that the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia consist of logging and the reallocation of forest for agriculture and mining. Over the years, a lot of forest areas have been devoted to timber-harvesting concession, and some forests have been cleared to the benefit of industrial timber plantation concessions. Although the State regulates logging, considerable parts of forests have been degraded due to the weakness of law enforcement. Illegal logging without forestry concessions is a common practice at large and small scales. At large scales, private companies operate illegal logging without any licenses or beyond their concession areas before selling wood in domestic and international markets. At the local level, local communities contribute to the rate of deforestation to a certain degree through the use of timber for their daily needs, such as the building of houses, under customary law. Furthermore, local communities and plantation companies engage in timber extraction to get money and invest it after.

Agriculture is another significant driver of deforestation and forest degradation. There has been an expansion of conversion of forests to oil palm plantations in Indonesia over the years. Mining is also another important driver in Sumatra. The exploitation of coal can allow Indonesia to meet its energy needs as well as to export to India and China. Finally, natural and human forest fires have caused the destruction of substantial parts of forests over the last decades.

We had a meeting with two NGOs during the mission. Given the sensitivity of the information disclosed, they asked us not to mention them in this article. These meetings have undoubtedly enabled us to have a more informed and accurate vision of reality. Indeed, we have learned that wildlife trafficking is a considerable concern in Jambi. Exported to China mostly, the pangolins are sought for their meat, their bones, and their organs as well as the aphrodisiac benefits of their scales, whereas it is only the organs of porcupines which mainly interest customers. As a result, they are disemboweled on the ground, cut up and left in the forest.

Moreover, we have learned that local communities were very little involved in the commission of environmental crimes such as, wildlife trafficking and illegal timber, clearing, encroachment or the exploitation of land outside concessions. In fact, Jambi has experienced several waves of immigration from other Indonesian provinces. These "migrants", as the director of an NGO calls them, are engaged by criminal networks to go into the forest and commit environmental crimes. However, the non-participation of local communities is only a matter of time according to the director. Once they understand the lucrative component of such activities, they will ask to take part in the traffic. It is therefore essential to stop the criminals at the head of these operations in order to prevent them from expanding further by recruiting local communities.

Concerning the political and legal sides, the NGOs told us that the provincial authorities had recently adopted a "zero tolerance" decree of forest fires. However, the problem is not related to the absence of laws but a lack of effectiveness and efficiency in law enforcement. For example, in a recent case involving a multinational due to devastating forest fires that started on its palm oil concession, the judge has preferred to apply the Criminal Code rather than the Forest Fire Prevention and Eradication Act. However, the Criminal Code requires the proof of the intention to commit the crime whereas the environmental law states that it is the responsibility of the owner of the concession, in case the enterprise, to take care of its territory. Therefore, the criminal origin or not of the forest fire is unimportant. In the end, in this case, the company was not convicted under the Criminal Code because of a lack of evidence showing one of its members set fire to the concession. The consequences of such a verdict are dramatic since the number of hectares of forest burned will not be restored. Case of conviction or corruption? Both according to the NGOs. On the one hand, the judge was convinced that the fire resulted from an accident and could not be associated with a crime. On the other hand, NGOs strongly suspect that acts of corruption have influenced this belief. However, proving corruption is hard.

In addition, we attended a meeting with sixteen principal law enforcement actors in Jambi Province. They did not discuss those aspects of conviction and corruption and the cooperation with NGOs. The importance of cooperation and coordination was affirmed and reaffirmed several times, but only between the different law enforcement authorities. The literature is clear on this subject. In general, the engagement of nongovernment actors, local communities, and NGOs can bring additional forms of social controls to tackling forestry and lead to the expansion of surveillance through the collaboration between law enforcement agencies and stakeholders concerned with these issues. This type of collaboration can bring many opportunities for states dealing with limited resources and expertise since it can augment and extend the resources in a cost-effective way.

What to remember from this mission? NGOs are actors that should be consulted when developing a project. Acting on the ground, they know the reality better and can undeniably inform the content of a project positively. In addition, NGOs are actors with which it is important to cooperate and collaborate. Indeed, as the literature emphasizes, collaboration and cooperation play a major role in the effectiveness and efficiency of law enforcement.