December 27, 2025 | 10:42 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A two-meter-long section of rubber tree trunk lay piled up at Garoga I Bridge, which links Garoga village in South Tapanuli with Anggoli village in Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra. The log did not appear to have been uprooted. The cut along its trunk was too neat. The marks of a chainsaw were clearly visible.
That day marked two weeks since flash floods struck five villages along the border of the two regencies on November 25, 2025. Tempo visited the site and found parts of the village blanketed by thousands of logs from various tree species. The logs had been swept away by floodwaters from the Aek Garoga, what locals call the Garoga River.
Investigators from the Special Crimes Directorate of the National Police Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) arrived at the site in early December. Slowly, they traced the origin of the logs. Their inquiry led them to vegetation identical to that found on cleared land belonging to palm oil company Tri Bahtera Srikandi (TBS) in the hills upstream of the river.
Of four adjacent cleared plots, two lay within the Garoga watershed area. They were located at Kilometer 6 and Kilometer 8. There, the bases of cut rubber trees were still embedded in the soil.
The findings were corroborated by testimony from TBS field operators. They admitted to cutting down trees to clear land. "But the way they cut and placed the logs did not comply with regulations," said Brig. Gen. Mohammad Irhamni, Director of Special Crimes, in an interview with Tempo at his office on Tuesday, December 16, 2025.
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