18% of protected forests already destroyed: Govt

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has indicated that destruction of the country's protected forests and conservation areas has so far reached 5.9 million hectares, or 18 percent of the total protected area.

Director of Conservation Areas at the Ministry of Forestry Widodo S. Ramono said on Wednesday that illegal logging and land clearance were to blame for the destruction of protected forests and conservation areas.

"Based on satellite imagery, we can say that 18 percent of the country's protected forest and conservation areas are no longer green. We presume this is mainly due to illegal logging and land clearance," he told the Jakarta Post.

The area of protected forests destroyed reached four million hectares, Widodo said.

According to Widodo, Tanjung Puting National Park, Central Kalimantan, recorded the highest amount of destroyed conservation area with over half of its area plundered, covering 40,000 hectares. Destruction of protected forests in the border between Kalimantan and Malaysia has also reached crisis level.

In contrast to environment groups' estimates, he claimed that only 7 percent of the area of Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra was devastated. The park, situated on the borders of Jambi, Riau and West Sumatra, is known as one of the most badly damaged conservation areas following the implementation of regional autonomy in 2001.

Among the conservation areas that remain well-preserved are Mount Gede National Park and Ujung Kulon National Park, West Java, and several national parks in Papua, said Widodo.

The forestry ministry's data shows that illegal logging and other human activities were detected in some 5.2 million hectares of protected forest and conservation areas.

These areas total 21.1 million hectares, according to the ministry's data.

Mining operations inside forests are believed to be another potential source of forest destruction.

Meanwhile, Forest Watch Indonesia's Togu Manurung believed the actual total of the country's protected forest and conservation areas destroyed was much higher than shown in the data provided by the Ministry of Forestry.

He said, for example, up to 2002, the ministry presented data that the deforestation rate had reached 1.5 million hectares per year, but recently the ministry revised the figure to 2 million hectares.

"Based on this experience, the ministry's data on protected forests and conservation area destroyed is usually lower than it actually is," he told the Post.

However, Togu agreed that the main factor in the destruction of protected forest was widespread illegal logging.

"As production forests have diminished, illegal loggers have shifted their target to protected forests," he said, adding that Papua's forests, which are relatively untouched, have also become the next destination of illegal loggers.

He added there was no other way to stop forest destruction than to take illegal loggers to court and close down timber companies that failed to promote sustainable environment.