No accurate data on forests

No accurate data on forests

AMBON: The Ministry of Forestry -- assigned to manage the
country's forests -- has no accurate data concerning provincial
forests, let alone the deforestation rate, says an official.

"We need an accurate data base," Boen Purnama, who heads the
forestry planning body said here on Wednesday, without
elaboration.

Boen was visiting Ambon to mark the commencement of the
development of an information system, to enable the Maluku
forestry agency to make an inventory of forests in the province.

Indonesia has lost more than 75 percent of its forests over
the past few decades, leaving only 60 million hectares at
present. Over the past five years, some 43 million hectares of
Indonesia's forests, or the equivalent of more than half of
Kalimantan Island, has been destroyed.

The World Bank predicts that if the current rapid pace of
deforestation continues, Indonesia could lose Sumatra's forests
in 2005, with Kalimantan's to follow within five more years.
-- Antara