Environmental groups in the UK and Indonesia today named two of the “kingpins” in Indonesia who are making a killing in the lucrative international trade in stolen timber.
In a new report based on their undercover investigations, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency and the Indonesian group Telapak identify businessmen Ricky Gunawan and Hengky Gosal as two of the major players in smuggling illicit merbau timber.
Merbau is a valuable dark hardwood used to make flooring, decking, outdoor furniture, doors and window frames. Merbau logs in Papua are sold for between $250 and $300 per cubic metre, the groups report.
Merbau is targeted by illegal loggers and timber smugglers due to heavy demand for raw timber in China and India, and for merbau products in Australia, the European Union and the United States.
Within Indonesia, almost all merbau trees are found in Papua in the eastern part of the country. Papua’s forests form part of the last significant tract of intact tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region, but about a quarter of Papua’s forests have been logged over the past 12 years.
The report, “Rogue Traders: The Murky Business of Merbau Timber Smuggling in Indonesia,” is the result of the groups’ undercover investigations. In it, the groups call on the Indonesian government to launch criminal investigations into the activities of Gunawan and Gosal.
