Police Hunt Poachers Who Caused Forest Fires on the Slopes of Mount Arjuno

Poaching activities on the slopes of Mount Arjuno are suspected of causing forest fires covering an area of more than 100 hectares. Poachers were detected in the Raden Soerjo Forest Park area on Friday (8/25/2023) night and fire spots began to appear the following day, Saturday (8/26/2023) night.

Malang police public relation chief, Ahmad Taufik said his team was working hard to identify and take legal action against poachers suspected of causing the fire.

"We are working with various parties to collect evidence and information needed in this investigation," Taufik said on Tuesday (29/8/2023).

Founder of Profauna Indonesia, Rosek Nursahid said that poaching activities have the potential to cause forest fires. This is not the first time wildfires have been caused by poachers.

"We suspect that (the fire was caused by poachers). That's the old mode. Forest fires a few years ago were also caused by animal hunters," Rosek said when he was contacted by Tugu Malang ID by telephone.

He said there were two possible hunting activities that could cause animal fires. The first possibility is that hunters staying overnight on the mountain lit bonfires and the flames spread into the forest. The second possibility is that the hunters deliberately burned the forest to get the animals out of hiding. As soon as the animals came out, they immediately hunted by shooting.

"So (the forest) is deliberately burned, later hunters wait below or in a certain place. Animals must have come out all because of the fire. Then they will get shot. That's a mode that (impacts) very severely on the ecosystem," he explained.

Source: Tugumalang.id