Lampung national parks damaged

BANDAR LAMPUNG: Around 35 percent out of the some 462,030 hectares of national parks in Lampung are believed to have been damaged due to illegal housing, logging and fires, head of the Lampung forestry agency said on Sunday.

"The damage has occurred in the conserved areas, natural rehabilitation areas and hunting areas," Syamsuddin Rachmat said as quoted by Antara.

The national park areas in Lampung include the 282,154-hectare South Bukit Barisan national park, the 125,621-hectare Way Kambas national park, the 17,281-hectare South Bukit Barisan sea conservation area, 13,371-hectare Krakatau conservation area and 22,249-hectare Wan Abdul Rahman forest park.

"The reforestation and rehabilitation of the parks has been conducted in some areas, but the rehabilitated areas are also being damaged by locals but we don't know if it's deliberate or not," Syamsuddin said without elaborating.

"There is are a lot of pressure from 'outside' to loot, illegally log and of course there are forest fires which can't be controlled by our agency," he added. (emf)