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Squatters to be evicted from TNWK
Authorities in Lampung have begun evicting thousands of squatters who have inhabited and farmed land inside the Way Kambas National Park (TNWK) for years
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Authorities in Lampung have begun evicting thousands of squatters who have inhabited and farmed land inside the Way Kambas National Park (TNWK) for years.
The eviction is being conducted by East Lampung park management officers, assisted by the Lampung Police.
The squatters, who mostly cultivate coffee, cassava and vegetables inside the protected forest, have been given a deadline of December this year to leave the area.
Head of the TNWK John Kenedie said the squatters would be cleared from a 6,000 hectare area of the forest - a habitat for rhinoceroses, elephants and tigers - which the squatters have occupied for the past 10 years.
The authorities are using a persuasive approach to evict the squatters, added Kenedie.
"We will give them a chance to harvest their cassava. They should leave the area by December this yearat the latest," Kenedie said on Thursday.
He added that more squatters would flock to the protected area if the current inhabitants were not immediately evicted from the park.
"We have to be stern due to the growing rate of damage in the TNWK. The rate of forest conversion has reached 500 hectares per year," he said.
"The total area of conversion has reached 6,000 hectares now. That's why elephants have ventured out of the TNWK and attacked people's homes and farms around the forest."
Kenedie added that besides the presence of squatters, forest conversion in TNWK could be attributed to claims to 7,450 hectares made by native Lampung tribes people.
"We are currently relocating squatters from native Lampung tribes. They have voluntarily come out of the national park after years of counselling with us," Kenedie said.
He added the number of squatters from outside Lampung was very large and included people from South Sumatra, East Java, Central Java, West Java and South Sulawesi.
"There could be thousands of them. They have lived in the forest for dozens of years and built semi-permanent homes there," he said.
The traditional communities from Labuhanratu and Rajabasa Lama villages in Labuhanratu district, and Rantaujaya Udik I and Sukadana Darat villages in Sukadana district in East Lampung have claimed rights to 7,450 hectares of land within the TNWK in the past 10 years.
Some of this land has since been leased to third parties.
"Labuhanratu residents now instead want to help the TNWK center conduct patrols and cut the connecting route to the area and demolish hundreds of squatter's homes," Kenedie added.
Based on a forestry ministry decree, the TNWK spans more than 125,000 hectares. Besides forest conversion, wildlife poaching and illegal logging - a number of cases of which involve TNWK employees - is rampant in the forest.
Lampung Police Chief Brig. Gen. Ferial Manaf said police would form a joint team with the East Lampung regency and Lampung Provincial Police to evict the squatters.
"We will be persuasive. Hopefully it will be completed soon, especially with the help of members of the traditional communities," Ferial said.
Director of the Lampung chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment Hendrawan said the Sadewa area was the easiest point for the removal of timber from the forest, as it borders the Way Seputih river delta area. Illegal timber can be drifted to points along the river and then transported by truck.
Data from the TNWK office record 135 cases of illegal logging within the last five years, involving 219 suspects. The office seizes 200 cubic meters of illegally harvested timber annually.
The Way Kambas National Park is a low plain forest made up of fresh water swamps, grass plains and coastal forests.
The park is home to 50 different kinds of mammals including Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran elephants, Sumateran tigers, taperers, wild dogs and siamang.
It is also home to 406 different species of birds such as wild ducks, sandang lawe egrets, tong-tong egrets, blue sempidan, kuau and various species of snakes.
