Bandarlampung, Ekuatorial – As increasing population living surrounding protected forest areas, officials started to launch awareness campaigns for local people to move out from the forest, said an official, in Bandarlampung, Lampung province, recently.
Based on Lampung Statistic Agency, the province’s population living near forest areas had risen significantly for the past ten years, from 153,779 to 171,119 families between 2004-14. At least 1.36 percent of these families are doing shifting cultivation and 8.27 percent earn their livings from forest products or hunting in the forest.
“It was a sympathetic operation so there was no violence. We were only giving education and awareness to people to leave protected areas,” said Region I unit head of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, Jaya Supena adding that the target area was Region I which comprise of four resorts, — Ulubelu, Tampang, Way Nipah and Sukaraja — with a total of 170,558 hectares located in Tanggamus district.
The operation took place for four days in mid December, said Supena, resulted to people voluntarily leave their shacks and plantations which were built inside the national park.
Furthermore, he said that the operation was also triggered by decreasing wildlife population, especially deer and pangolin, at the national park. “The actual target of this operation is to protect predators population, such as tiger, elephant and rhino,” he said. “We can’t let deer being less and less in population because predators would end up ransacking local villages to find food.”
He also said by increasing awareness of local people then it would lighten work load for forest police and its partners, locally known as Masyarakat Mitra Polhut (MMP). “Ideally, one resort is guarded by five forest police and five MMPs but we are currently employ three forest police. So, still far from ideal,” he said. Eni Muslihah