T

wo months after being evicted from areas around Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS), hundreds of people have returned to the protected area to continue clearing forestland for farming.

The intruders, who mostly entered from Pesanguan village in Lampung province, were erecting makeshift huts inside the park to cultivate coffee, cacao, rice fields and other crops.

Most of them were not from Tanggamus regency, but from other regions in Lampung, Pematangsawa district chief Suyanto said, adding that some of the trespassers had come from the Lampung provincial capital of Bandarlampung, neighboring South Sumatra, and even from West Java and Banten.

“They forced themselves back into the forest to make a living. They don’t have other fields outside the conservation area. They were angry when police previously destroyed their plantations, and now they want to take it back,” Suyanto said.

A resident of Kemiling, Bandarlampung, said he could not support his family if he did not farm within the park. “Forest rangers raided us, but the government and the TNBBS agency did not provide us with alternative solutions. If they want to evict us, give us land to farm. We’re ready to move if the land is there,” he said.

Forestry Ministry’s Inspector General Irham Jafar Lan Putra insisted that no one is allowed to farm inside the national park. “We will force them to leave the forest. Otherwise, damage to the park will worsen,” said Irham, who is a former secretary of the Lampung provincial administration.

The illegal trespassers have come in much bigger numbers, park regional division chief Amon Zamora said. “We have given them until the end of this month to leave the forest. If they insist [on staying], we will arrest them and take them to court,” he said.

There were reportedly some 50,000 residents who farmed illegally in the park before they were evicted two months ago.

Illegal coffee plantations may pose a threat to Lampung’s Robusta coffee exports because of the possibility that the firm’s products could be rejected by international markets based on suspicions that inputs might have come from farms inside the national park.

The illegal farms may also jeopardize preservation efforts in the 360,000-hectare park, which is home to a number of endangered species, such as Sumatran ele-phants, Sumatran tigers and Sumatran rhinos.