<![CDATA[Indonesia governs its protected forests through a dense body of legislation, yet ecosystem degradation caused by illegal logging continues largely unchecked. This article asks why environmental law enforcement fails in the Kasintuwu Protected Forest, Mangkutana District, Luwu Timur Regency, South Sulawesi. Applying an empirical legal method, it combines interviews at four institutions, examination of their case registers, and statutory analysis, in order to trace where forestry cases are lost along the enforcement chain. Between 2017 and 2023 residents lodged ninety-four reports of illegal logging, while only ten case files reached the public prosecutor and nine cases were registered at the district court, and enforcement clustered almost entirely in a single year. Three obstacles explain this attrition: evidentiary difficulty produced by imprecise forest-boundary designation and overlapping licensing; institutional incapacity, with three forest rangers responsible for 163,283.30 hectares; and alleged informal levies that terminate reports before investigation. The article argues that the enforcement deficit is structural rather than normative, and recommends boundary re-demarcation with legal certainty, a minimum ranger-to-area ratio, independent oversight of pre-investigation screening, and community-based conservation incentives]]>
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