Excavator found clearing peatswamps in Singkil, by Junaidi Hanafiah and courtesy of Mongabay
The province of Aceh, Indonesia, lost more than 4,000
hectares of forest in the first half of 2016, largely due to “legally
questionable, if not downright illegal” palm oil expansion, according to a report on Mongabay.
Aceh has some of the most important forests left in
Indonesia, and certainly on the island of Sumatra, that are begin steadily
eroded through conversion and a war of attrition on the legal protection
afforded to them.
This week Mongabay reported on a case in which villagers
found excavators “tearing a gash through the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve”,
on October 29. The reserve is a vital habitat for the critically endangered
Sumatran orangutan, among many other endemic species.
Three workers were taken in for questioning by police, but
as of last week no suspects have been named in the case, with activists and
government officials arguing that the backers of the illegal deforestation are
escaping justice.
“What’s clear is that they weren’t opening the land to meet
their daily needs,” Genman Hasibuan, the head of the local branch of the
Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), told Mongabay. “The presence of
heavy machinery shows that the perpetrator wanted to enrich himself.”
Singkil is Aceh’s largest and deepest peatland. Around 4,300
hectares of its 81,338 hectare expanse have been damaged in pursuit of palm oil
development, according to the NGO Leuser Conservation Foundation. Farwiza
Farhan, of the NGO HAkA, says 1,000 hectares of palm oil have already been
illegally established.
Rusli Anwar, a resident of Trumon subdistrict in South Aceh,
told Mongabay that the encroachment in Singkil was the work of not only local
people looking to make ends meet but cashed-up entrepreneurs too. “The biggest
encroachment is done by local businessmen,” he said. “Using heavy equipment,
they have opened dozens of hectares of land to establish oil palm plantations.”
Sabri, deputy chief of the South Aceh Police, assured
community members during a meeting last week that he would see the latest case
through to completion. Ipda Adrianus, head of the unit in charge of the case,
told Mongabay-Indonesia that some witnesses had been called but the police were
still investigating.
