C. Sulawesi National Park threatened

C. Sulawesi National Park threatened

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Some 3,000 hectares of a total of 87,196 hectares, or about 3.4
percent, of the Lore Lindu National Park (TNLL) in Palu, Central
Sulawesi, are facing serious threats of damage due to lllegal
logging, a report said.

Banjar Yulianto Laban, head of the Park's maintenance office,
said the main area of the park which had suffered major damage
was the one located on a 20-degree slope.

"With such a slope, squatters would only have to cut the logs
and let them slide down onto the trucks or other vehicles,"
Banjar said as quoted by Antara.

"Should the damage continue, I'm afraid that we will fail to
protect the animals and plants there," he added.

The Central Sulawesi provincial administration has decided
that 40 percent of some 218,000 hectares of its tropical forests,
the entire area of the national park, were protected forests. The
remaining 60 percent, or 130,794 hectares are a mix of both
protected forest and areas for people to live in and work with.

As of January this year, some 1,500 hectares of the park's
main area in Dongi-Dongi had been damaged. The latest
investigation conducted by a local non-governmental organization
(NGO), the Katopasa Indonesia, early last month, revealed that
the deforestation continued as it had reached to 2,000 hectares.

The damage to the national park has only added to the number
of the country's national parks already hurt by irresponsible
people. Recent surveys conducted by U.S.-based Harvard
University's Ecology Laboratory of Tropical Forests have found
that more than 61,000 hectares of the 90,000-hectare Gunung
Palung National Park in the regency of Ketapang, West Kalimantan,
had been destroyed over the last ten years.

In addition to illegal logging, the fragile ecosystems of
these traditional forests have also been destroyed due to the
operations of mining companies.

The Leuser National Park (LNP) in Medan, North Sumatra, and
the Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) in Central Sumatra are
also facing possible disaster after plans were made by some
companies to invest in plantations and coal mining there.

As many blamed the forest damages on the squatters, an
investigation by the people of Banggai regency in Central
Sulawesi, along with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment
(Walhi), showed that seven timber companies had allegedly
destroyed some protected forests in the regency -- PT Palopo
Timber, PT Balantak Rimba Rejeki, PT Dahatama Adhikarya, PT
Kurnia Luwuk Sejati, PT Nyiur Inti Mas, PT Kawisan Central Asia
and PT Maliando Bangun Persada.