Gawat, pencurian/penyelundupan kayu Indonesia bukan
saja merusak lingkungan tapi sudah menimbulkan
kerugian ekonomi tiada tara. Kayu jenis bagus, besar
dan lurus diselundupkan terang-terangan ke Malaysia.
Sisanya yang jelek, kecil-kecil dan tidak lurus
menjadi bagian kita. Akibatnya, para pengusaha mebel
kita kekurangan bahan baku yang baik dan banyak yang
terancam tutup usaha, buruhnya mau kemana.
Kadin mencak-mencak. Departemen Kehutanan sendiri
sudah angkat tangan, karena pencoleng-pencoleng itu
ada yang melindungi. Rupanya departemen ini tidak
melihat cara lain, kecuali mengeluarkan siaran pers
No: 5/450/II/PIK-1/2004 tertanggal 5 Agustus 2004 yang
berjudul PENYELUNDUPAN KAYU DARI INDONESIA SANGAT
MEMPRIHATINKAN. Intinya, jumlah kayu yang dicatat
negara pengimport berbeda sangat jauh, lebih dari 16
kali lipat dari jumlah kayu yang dieksport secara
resmi.
Laporan investigatif yang ditulis oleh Leslie Lopez
dan dimuat di FEER (berita dibawah) menyebutkan bahwa
tengkulak Malaysia mengirimkan hasil curian itu ke
China (sebagian besar), Singapura dan Korea.
Tidak sukar bagi pemerintah Indonesia hasil pemilu 20
September, untuk membuat gebrakan besar disini.
Salam,
RM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(FEER)
MALAYSIA
Save-the-Trees Savvy
Environmental activists, after mapping the trade route
taken by Indonesian timber, are trying to curb illegal
logging by taking aim at Malaysia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Leslie Lopez/KUALA LUMPUR
Issue cover-dated August 05, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POSING AS A TIMBER BUYER for European furniture
makers, Sam Lawson, a researcher for the London-based
Environmental Investigation Agency, approached several
Malaysian traders last year hoping to gain insight
into the smuggling of hardwood from Indonesia's
fast-depleting forests.
Eager to please a potential customer, the traders gave
Lawson the lowdown on an estimated $500 million-a-year
timber-laundering business that moves smuggled
Indonesian hardwood to manufacturers in China.
"They were actually proud of how cunning and sly they
were in getting around the rules," says Lawson of the
Malaysian and Singaporean timber dealers he met.
The traders described how they easily exploited
loopholes in Malaysian export rules. These middlemen
buy logs and sawn timber shipped from Indonesia and
then organize the necessary documentation from local
Malaysian port authorities before shipping the
processed lumber to Chinese buyers.
In some circumstances, particularly in trades
involving protected hardwoods such as ramin, Lawson
was told that the contraband timber would arrive in
boats at little-policed barter-trade centres that dot
the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, across the
Strait of Malacca from Indonesia. To get around an
Indonesian ban on ramin exports, the traders said,
they arranged for documentation to show that the ramin
was harvested in Malaysia.
The ramin would then be shipped to China, where the
timber is in huge demand because its warp-resistant
nature makes it ideal for making pool cues, baby
furniture and other products for export to the United
States and Europe. China, which imposed a nationwide
ban on domestic logging in 1998, is the world's
fastest-growing market for tropical timber, with
imports soaring 75% last year to $11.2 billion.
Now the EIA is trying to curb international
log-laundering by pressing retailers and consumers in
Europe and the U.S. to boycott wood products from
Malaysia.
The EIA's campaign highlights how environmental
groups, including the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy,
are becoming increasingly aggressive and innovative in
their campaign to promote sustainable
forest-management practices in Indonesia, home to
about 10% of the world's remaining tropical-forest
cover and some of the most diverse ecosystems.
Some Indonesian officials have gone so far as to call
for the death penalty for illegal logging, but
enforcing the law hasn't been easy. Says Greg Clough,
communications specialist with the Centre for
International Forestry Research, "One of the main
factors underpinning illegal logging" is that the
timber-processing capacity is more than 10 times
greater than the Ministry of Forestry's allowable cut,
which is 5.7 million cubic metres in 2004.
The EIA estimates that 5.2 million acres are lost each
year to illegal logging in Indonesia alone. Given
Jakarta's apparent difficulty in dealing with the
problem, the EIA decided to devote its efforts to
Malaysia and force it to clamp down on trade in
illegally sourced timber.
Lim Keng Yaik, a senior Malaysian cabinet minister
with nearly 20 years' experience managing the
country's rich commodity and resource-based economy,
says that Malaysia is being "unfairly burdened by all
this finger-pointing."
Still, Kuala Lumpur is taking the boycott campaign
seriously because of the damage it could inflict on
Malaysia's $5 billion-a-year legitimate
wood-and-furniture export sector. "There is no denying
that some of this [smuggling] is going on and we can't
afford this small amount of illegal activity to
destroy our credibility in the overseas market," Lim
says.
Since the EIA publicized its timber-laundering
investigation's findings in February, Malaysia has
stepped up policing its porous border along the Strait
of Malacca. Raids have apparently disrupted the timber
trade in some places, like Batu Pahat in Johor state,
where for years Indonesian traders have arrived in
small boats loaded with illegal logs and sawn timber
to exchange for rice and electronic goods from their
Malaysian counterparts. "The raids have made the
supply of ramin and other timber very inconsistent,"
says Ng Cheng Chai, who operates a private jetty just
outside town and has seen a sharp dip in business over
the last five months.
Cutting off illegal Indonesian imports has raised
Malaysian ramin prices almost 30% to 1,700 ringgit
($447) a tonne. "We've been scaling down our ramin use
over the years because of price increases," says
Stanley Goh, who owns Twins Furniture, which
manufactures and exports baby furniture. Goh says that
he has begun using imported timber from Germany and
New Zealand as substitutes.
At Malaysia's Pasir Gudang port, across the Johor
Strait from Singapore, authorities have stopped the
trade in timber from Indonesia at the urging of the
Malaysian government. Lim Meng Soon, director of
operations at the port, concedes that Malaysian and
Singaporean traders had been exploiting loopholes in
export rules governing so-called free-trade zones such
as his port to import and re-export Indonesian wood.
"We are not a monitoring authority. We handle
transshipment, and if the paperwork is fine, the
timber goes through," he says.
With the shutdown of timber transshipments at Pasir
Gudang, much of the trade has moved to Jurong port in
Singapore, according to industry executives.
Lau Chan Huat, a Malaysian timber trader who runs a
business sourcing wood from Indonesia, Cambodia and
Burma for export to China, says he's shifted
operations to Jurong from Pasir Gudang. "I don't know
why the [Malaysian] government is being so tough. But
this is business and I have to ensure a steady supply
of timber for my customers," he says. As for ramin, he
says, "I don't do ramin any more."
Lye Fong Keng, spokeswoman for Singapore's Agri-Food
and Veterinary Authority, which regulates the trade of
protected timber species at the country's ports, says
that her agency has stepped up surveillance. Any ramin
for sale, she says, could be coming from Singapore's
existing stockpiles bought before it was designated a
protected timber species by the Indonesian government
in August 2001.
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