THE EDITOR – The Ministry of Forestry (Kemenhut) is tracing the sources of wood carried by floods in Sumatra, including the potential for logging and other illegal practices, considering that previously a number of cases of illegal timber trafficking were revealed in affected areas.
The Director General of Law Enforcement (Gakkum) of the Ministry of Law and Forestry, Dwi Januanto Nugroho, said that the wood carried by floods in Sumatra could come from various sources ranging from weathered trees, fallen trees, river material, former legal logging areas, to misuse of land rights holders (PHAT) and illegal logging (illegal logging).
The focus of the Directorate General of Law and Human Rights, he said, is to investigate professionally every indication of violations and process evidence of forestry crimes through applicable legal mechanisms.
“Regarding the growing news, I need to emphasize that our explanation is never intended to deny the possibility of illegal practices behind the wood that were carried away by the flood, but to clarify the wood sources that we are currently investigating and ensure that every illegal logging element is still processed according to the provisions,” he said in Voice of Indonesia (VOI) in Sunday (31/11/2025).
This is because throughout 2025 alone, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights has handled a number of cases related to illegal timber laundering around flood-affected areas in Sumatra. Including Central Aceh in June 2025 when investigators uncovered illegal felling of trees outside the PHAT area and forest areas by PHAT owners with evidence of about 86.60 cubic meters of illegal wood.
Not only that, in Solok, West Sumatra in August 2025, tree felling activities were successfully uncovered in forest areas outside the PHAT which were transported using PHAT documents with 152 logs/log evidence, 2 excavator units, and 1 bulldozer unit.
In the Mentawai and Gresik Islands in October 2025), the Directorate General of Gakkumhut and the Forest Area Control Task Force (PKH) confiscated 4,610.16 cubic meters of roundwood from the Sipora Forest whose expenses also involved problematic PHAT documents.
Meanwhile in Siringok, South Tapanuli in October 2025, 4 units of trucks loaded with round wood were secured 44.25 cubic meters with wood documents sourced from the frozen PHAT.
” Forestry crimes no longer work simply. Wood from forest areas can be dragged into a legal scheme by utilizing PHAT documents that are falsified, duplicated, or borrowed by names. Therefore, we are not only cracking down on illegal logging in the field, but also tracing documents, goods flow, and the flow of funds behind it,” he said.
For this reason, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights is currently conducting a moratorium on Forest Products Entrepreneurship Information System (SIPuHH) services for wood administration in PHAT in other areas of use (APL) as part of preventing the use of the scheme to circulate illegal timber resulting from illegal logging.
