Deforestation Causes Losses of 43b Dollars in Indonesia
9/8/99
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Title: Deforestation Causes Losses of 43b Dollars in Indonesia
Source: Xinhua
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 8, 1999
JAKARTA (Sept. 8) XINHUA - The destruction of forests in Indonesia
during the 22 years from 1977 to 1999 caused losses of up to 43
billion U.S. dollars or almost 2 billion dollars annually.
This was stated by Agus Purnomo, executive director of World Wildlife
Fund (WWF) Indonesia, at a seminar here Tuesday.
Deforestation had been carried out on a large scale because
businessman dealing in timber made large profits from the permits to
manage forest on a large scale, said Purnomo.
According to WWF, there were indications that out of 1.2 million
hectares of primary forest in Jambi, Sumatera Island, 69.5 percent
remain unchanged, 8.4 percent had been converted into secondary
forest and 5 percent into agricultural lands and grassland. The
damage in Kalimantan and Irian was even worse.
From the global change point of view such conversions were evaluated
in terms of carbon from each vegetation types. The deforestation in
the region and other parts of Indonesia had resulted in stronger
emissions of radioactive trace gases to the atmosphere.
Figures from the Indonesia-United Kingdom Tropical Forest Management
Program indicated that from the total output of logs in Indonesia of
up t 32 million cubic meters annually, the output from illegal log
fellers was up to 10.3 million cubic meters.
Hariadi Kartodihardjo, lecturer from Bogor Farming Institute, said
that of the total forest area of 143 million hectares in Indonesia,
30 million hectares were intended for converted forest, which means
that people can fell trees to get logs and replant them again.
From the total converted forest, 16.6 million hectares or more than
50 percent had been totally damaged and were in irreversible
condition, he added.