Govt sets up special forest ranger force

JAKARTA: The Ministry of Forestry has formed a special forest ranger police force to provide more personnel to combat illegal logging.

The ministry said in a media release on Monday that 300 members of the Quick Response Forest Ranger Unit (SPORC) had been recruited from Papua, West Irian Jaya, South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Jambi, South Sumatra, Riau and North Sumatra.

By 2010, the ministry hopes to have recruited 1,500 special forest rangers.

The government currently has some 8,000 regular forest rangers, 3,100 of them are serving in Jakarta, where trees, let alone illegal logging, are difficult to find. -- Antara