As I sat down to write this column, I learned that a village in Sumatra had been devastated by a flash flood triggered by extensive illegal logging in the adjacent National Park.
We read about these things all the time in the newspaper, feel a brief flash of pity for lives destroyed and then our eyes drift across the page to more engaging news. But this particular flood in the village of Langkat touched a nerve in me.
My friend Lucy Wisdom is a luminous woman who battles deforestation and cancer with equal determination. The forests of Sumatra are home to the last 4,000 orang utans which survive on that island. In 1997 Lucy founded the Sumatran Orangutan Society. But she has been dedicating her small personal resources to try and save this unique species for much longer than that. She raises money tirelessly to increase awareness of the fact that Sumatran orangutans are disappearing at the rate of about 1,000 a year. “We are already out of time,” she mourns.
Since 1994 she’s spent several months a year in a modest home- stay in the village of Langkat, crossing the river daily to pursue her rehabilitation work with orang utans who have been released into the forest. These apes periodically come to a feeding platform across the river from Langkat, attracting tourists who come to observe them. A modest cottage industry has evolved in the village with home-stay operators, vendors and restaurants providing services to the nascent eco-tourism industry.
Just a week ago, Langkat was devastated by a massive wall of water, mud and forest debris. Over 100 villagers are estimated to have been killed immediately along with tourists from West Sumatra, the US, Germany, Austria and Singapore. At least 300 villagers are missing and 420 homes were destroyed in this village of just 2,500 people. Lucy had just spent 3 weeks in Langkat, leaving it a few days before the tragedy.
Langkat is located inside the 26,000 square kilometre Leuser Ecosystem, the most biologically rich rainforest area in Southeast Asia and one of the Earth’s leading conservation hotspots. The ecosystem is host to about 25,000 of the world’s known species of flora and fauna, including the last remaining viable populations of Sumatran orangutans, tigers, rhinoceroses and elephants. The 9,000 square kilometre Gunung Leuser National Part is located inside the Leuser Ecosystem.
This is the area’s most important watershed, sustaining four million people and a major industrial complex. It’s also the last remaining natural forest of any size left in Sumatra. About 80% of the Leuser Ecosystem is located within the province of Aceh. And illegal logging in Aceh is out of control.
According to both the Department of Forestry and the Army Chief of Staff (Media Indonesia, 16/01/2003), rogue members of the enforcement apparatus not only provide backing, but are actively involved in cutting and removing trees. Blatant illegal logging has support at the highest levels.
WALHI, a leading environmental NGO, points out that the current governor has openly acknowledged his involvement with the logging business in interviews with Indonesian magazines. A report from the University of Indonesia this year concluded that Aceh was the most corrupt province in Indonesia. The Jakarta Post reported on November 4 that “The government and military are widely known to profit from the trade, but no concrete action is ever taken against them despite political rhetoric.”
Fourteen illegal roads were opened up recently inside the Gunung Leuser National Park in Southeast Aceh for use by illegal loggers supported by members of the local political elite. Every illegal logging truck transporting the timber out of Southeast Aceh is inspected by the Army and Police road check point at the Aceh/ North Sumatra provincial boundary post at Lawe Pakam. This is despite Presidential Decree No. 5/2001 to stop illegal logging in the Leuser Ecosystem, and despite a command from the Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army to all concerned army units in Aceh to eliminate involvement in illegal logging and help protect the Leuser Ecosystem.
With this level of disrespect for the national government by the rogue elements on the ground, what hope is there of stopping the destruction of this unique area, nominated as a World Heritage site.
A highly controversial system of proposed roads called Ladia Galaska will divide the Leuser Ecosystem into 9 fragments at a cost of US$ 169 million. The 470 kilometre network of roads will allow much greater access to new areas of forest, almost guaranteeing its rapid destruction from illegal logging.
Logging not only destroys the fragile local ecosystem, it also has a dramatic impact downstream. In 1982, USAID provided funding for a road that split the Gunung Leuser National Park in half. Subsequent rapid deforestation of the newly opened-up areas consequentially led to fatal floods and landslides. At least three villages in Southeast Aceh had to be relocated due to floods, which can be attributed to the destruction of water catchment areas as a result of illegal logging. Tens of thousands of people had to evacuate their homes in the Aceh Barat Daya area due to floods that wreaked destruction on local communities, with many people killed. The damage to infrastructure in just this one of the four districts that were cut off by floods was estimated at $11.75 million.
And now tiny Langkat has been added to the toll, the most recent community to be destroyed by catastrophic flooding as a result of uncontrolled deforestation.
Lucy has often said that her work is not so much about saving orang utans as saving forests. In the nine years she has been visiting North Sumatra, she’s seen the forest shrink and the number of logging trucks increase.
She shows me photos of orangutans which have been successfully rehabilitated and are now living out their lives in the Leuser Ecosystem, in constant retreat from the sound of chainsaws. In just a few years there will be no forest left, nowhere to hide. “Sometimes I despair a little,” Lucy confides. “My clock is ticking, and so is theirs.”
Readers in Bali can support the Sumatra Orangutan Society by helping this tiny NGO with its huge backlog of work ie cataloguing photographs, maintaining clipping files, designing new outreach materials and many other tasks. Email info@orangutans-sos.org and ask for their Task List.
