RI, Japan launch program against haze, illegal logging<\/p>\n
Agence France-Presse, Johannesburg, South Africa<\/p>\n
Indonesia joined forces on Thursday with Japan, its top export
\nmarket for timber, to launch a regional forestry program to help
\nbattle forest fires and haze, and rampant illegal logging in its
\nvast archipelago.<\/p>\n
The Asia Forestry Partnership, involving 12 countries and
\neight global organizations, will boost Indonesia's forest law
\nenforcement and resources to protest its dwindling forests, said
\nforestry planning agency director general Boen Purnama.<\/p>\n
The country lost some two million hectares (4,800,000 acres)
\nof forest annually between 1990 and 2000, he said on the
\nsidelines of the UN Earth Summit.<\/p>\n
\"The partnership will strengthen our capacity to battle forest
\nfires and illegal logging, and this is critical in a time of
\neconomic weakness where many sectors are thinking only of short-
\nterm gains,\" he told AFP.<\/p>\n
Indonesia has come under pressure from neighboring Malaysia,
\nThailand and Singapore to take action over its forest fires which
\nhave sent smoke haze over the region almost annually since 1997.<\/p>\n
It is also battling an epidemic of illegal logging -- fueled
\nby corruption and lawlessness -- that doubled its deforestation
\nrate in the late 1990s and prompted conservationists to warn its
\nforests might disappear within five to 15 years.<\/p>\n
Japan's ambassador for global environment and international
\neconomic affairs Kazuo Asakai said the partnership was a
\ncollective action to curb forest degradation in Asia which was
\ncontinuing at an \"alarming rate.\"<\/p>\n
Some 12.3 million hectares of tropical forests have
\ndisappeared between 1990 and 2000, officials said.<\/p>\n
The forestry partnership, involving Australia, Britain,
\nCambodia, France, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand,
\nthe United States and the European Union, will develop regional
\nactions to prevent fire and rehabilitate degraded lands, Asakai
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
They will cooperate on satellite data and mapping for forest
\nmanagement, research and information exchange to control forest
\nfires and haze, and develop a tracking and verification mechanism
\nto stamp out trade of illegally harvested timber, he said.<\/p>\n
The partnership is open to other interested entities and will
\nhold its first meeting Nov. 11 in Tokyo, he added.<\/p>\n
Purnama urged Malaysia, believed to be a transit point for
\nIndonesian illegal timber before being shipped to final markets
\nin Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, to join the partnership.<\/p>\n
Malaysia in June banned log imports from Indonesia but he said
\nillegally felled logs were exported in the form of processed
\ntimber, and this posed a challenge for both countries.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's forest cover fell from 162 million hectares in
\n1950 to only 98 million hectares in 2000.<\/p>\n
It has also banned log and woodchip exports to protect its
\nforests and proposed setting up a court to prosecute
\nenvironmental looters, a move it says will reduce illegal logging
\nand protect the local timber trade.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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