By: Syamsidar
Jon Hendra or shortly called is a member of Tiger Protection Unit (TPU) at WWF Riau Program. He first joined WWF on August 2004. “At the beginning I had no burden to join the TPU recruitment test conducted by WWF. I just gave it a try, I had no job that time,” Hendra said. Phsically Hendra is skiny compared to other candidates of the TPU members however he enthusiatically joined the test and expected he would pass the test and get many new experience.
Hendra had previously interacted with WWF staffs that conducted survey around his village. Situgal village is a village around Tesso Nilo that is located in Kuantan Singingi District. Hendra is originated from this village and this situation made him be able to get to know a bit about WWF. This village has always been a village that WWF staffs often visit in doing survey in Tesso Nilo forest.
This 26 yearold-man was an illegal logger exactly a log broker. Timber resulted from his group’s felling was sold to sawmills around Tesso Nilo forest. During the year 2000 to 2003 many sawmills scattered around the forest. Hendra admitted that he enjoyed the profit of practicing illegal logging. Moreover law regarding illegal logging was not meaningfully enhanced at the time. He could do the job safely and earned much money. He said that he did the job because he had no other job and illegal logging was what most villagers in his village did. He rememberred that almost there was no trouble he faced during his job as an illegar logger.
Hendra’s awareness about the importance of saving forest was built up when he joined WWF. He realized that forest and its resources must be preserved for the sake of future life. Now when he sees illegal logging, encroachment and forest fire during his assignment to monitor threats to Sumatran tiger and its habitat, he feels so sad. He regretted that he did such kind of activities. He expects that government can soon solve encroachment in Tesso Nilo that threatens the forest.
He felt depressed seeing that Tesso Nilo forest has been converted to oil palm plantation and settlement. In his duty he often finds out tigers’s signs in encroachment sites and acacia plantation. Hendra worries a lot about this condition as it implies potential condition for human-tiger conflict. “ The forest is changed to settlement and plantation which make human activities overlapped with tiger’s homerange,” Hendra said. He added, if the problem causing this condition is not handled soon, there would be no forest left in the future. He cannot imagine what will happen to tigers and human being around the forest. As an effort he can do, Hendra tries to build up the villagers awareness and educate them about how importance to preserve forest and combat encroaching practice.