ITTO donates $1.6m for forestry projects

ITTO donates $1.6m for forestry projects

JAKARTA (JP): The International Tropical Timber Organization
(ITTO) agreed on Thursday to provide a grant of US$1.6 million to
support the government's efforts in promoting sustainable forest
management.

Manoel Sobral Filho, the organization's executive director
said the grant, which is equivalent to Rp 11.2 billion, would be
used to finance three forestry projects in Indonesia.

"The three projects will focus on sustainable forest
management which will benefit stakeholders, the tropical timber
industries as well as local communities," Filho said following
the signing of the grant agreement.

He said $1.09 million of the total grant would be used to
partly finance the third phase of sustainable forest management
and a human resources development project currently being
executed by the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations.

Filho said that the other $211,905 would partly finance the
reforestation and forest management project proposed by the
ministry in its capacity of task manager for the Asia-Pacific
Forestry Commission's Ad Hoc Working Group on Sustainable Forest
Management. While the remaining $631,861 would be used to support
the development of the forestry industry in the community, around
industrial forest plantations in Indonesia.

Indonesia's Minister of Forestry and Plantations Nur Mahmudi
Ismail said the grant was needed to support his ministry's
efforts in reducing the growing rates of forest degradation
throughout the country.

According to Agus Purnomo, executive director of the World
Wild Fund for Nature, the pace of forest clearing in the country
had reached 2.4 million hectares every year in contrast to
900,000 hectares in the late 1980s.

From 1990 to 1999, Indonesia has received from ITTO a total of
$12 million, making it one of three countries that has benefited
most from the organization's funds. (06)