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.