Environmental law enforcement in forestry crime: A disjunction between ideality and reality

Abstract

Forestry law enforcement is far from what is intended and expected. Despite compelling data and evidence showing that illegal logging is a worldwide epidemic, most forest crimes go undetected, unreported, or are ignored. Illegal logging cases in Papua province is important and interesting to be studied from a criminological perspective. The research is a socio-legal research. It was conducted to obtain empirical-qualitative observations of the research issue. It was located in Papua Province, Indonesia. The results show that the legislation in term of illegal logging is considered adequate, law enforcement officers in the field are very inadequate. Whereas, the forest areas that must be handled is wide. In order for the quality of forest law enforcement to be improved, the actors involved - whether on the forestry side or in criminal justice - need to develop a better understanding of the wide range of laws. Also, the things related to facilities and infrastructure as well as the culture of the people who tend to cut down or destroy the forest (shifting cultivation/illegal logging). Changing culture quickly is not an easy task, it requires a long time, and it is known that culture is strongly attached to the community. For this reason, the local government is expected to be able to approach the communities to reside around the forest to provide an understanding of the importance of forest protection and preservation, as well as preparing agricultural and plantation land for their survival and livelihood.