CHAPTER 1
Introduction
F
orestry’s criminal justice system is broken. Despite compelling data and evidence showing that illegal logging is a worldwide epidemic, most forest crimes go undetected, unreported, or are ignored. All too often, investigations—in the rare event that they do take place—are amateurish and inconclusive, and the few cases taken to court tend to be of trivial significance, prosecuting people whose involvement in crime is due to poverty and exploitation. Even fewer cases result in significant or serious penalties, and the public treasury virtually never recovers the economic value of stolen or destroyed forest assets. Considering that billions of dollars are reaped in illicit gains from forestry-related abuses every year, it is not surprising that the relatively light penalties that are exacted for these crimes form no deterrent at all.5 There are countless examples of the criminal justice system’s failures in this area. In 2005, an initiative to combat illegal logging in Papua, Indonesia, identified 186 suspects and secured almost 400,000 cubic meters of illegally harvested timber. However, only 13 suspects were convicted, and the most significant punishment was a two-year prison sentence.6 Similarly, in April 2010, President Yudhoyono of Indonesia instructed the country’s Anti-Mafia Task Force to review illegal logging court cases in which defendants received lenient sentences or were acqui ed. It was found that, of 92 illegal logging defendants, 49 were acqui ed, 24 received one-year jail terms, and 19 others received penalties of between one and two years.7 In Cambodia, the Agriculture Minister has blamed the failure to try approximately 70 percent of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries crimes in court because of a lack of cooperation between courts and prosecutors.8 It would be less disturbing if these were isolated or unusual incidents, which could be a ributed to random error or to the eccentricities of individual prosecutors, courts, or judges. Unfortunately, they are typical, and represent a larger, persistent, and pervasive problem. With such weak penalties and so li le likelihood of prosecution, the criminal justice system fails to provide any real deterrent to forest crime. The consequences of the failure of forest law enforcement are enormous—and extend far beyond the damage to the trees themselves. According to recent estimates, illegal logging generates illicit earnings of approximately US$10–15 billion annually worldwide, with underpayment of royalties and taxes on legally sanctioned logging amounting to an additional US$5 billion.9 In some countries, illegally harvested logs
5. Contreras-Hermosilla 2001, p. 14. 6. Satriastanti 2010. 7. Antara News 2010. 8. Sophakchakrya 2010. 9. The World Bank 2006, pp. 2, 8-9; Seneca Creek Associates 2004.
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