H OS LAW FIRM | Attorneys at Law – Jakarta

JAKARTA, H OS LAW FIRM -   President Prabowo Subianto's statement promising to crack down on illegal logging after the Sumatra floods sounds firm, but it feels late and paradoxical. When the disaster had already claimed victims and left giant logs floating down the river, the state was busy crafting a narrative of action. In fact, illegal logging is not an incidental event, but a long-standing practice that has flourished under lax state supervision—or deliberately loosened for economic interests. Ironically, amid the discovery of neatly cut large logs, a statement emerged from a Forestry Ministry official, Dwi Januanto, who said the wood came from naturally fallen trees. This claim not only contradicts the logic of the field, but also reveals the tendency of state officials to suppress the facts rather than expose them. When industrial timber is simplified as a “natural phenomenon,” what is taking place is not scientific clarification, but the normalization of ecological destruc...