Reduced-impact logging technique developed

JAKARTA (JP): A reduced-impact logging technique is currently being developed to limit the damage caused by incorrect logging practices, an official says.

Head of the Ministry of Forestry's Research and Development Agency, Toga Silitonga, said here yesterday that the technique, which aims to minimize logging waste and environmental destruction, is being developed by the agency in collaboration with CIRAD-Foret of France.

"Incorrect logging practices are the cause of up to 35 percent of the forest destruction in Indonesia," Silitonga said after opening a workshop on the results of a research conducted in the Dipterocarp forests of Berau, East Kalimantan.

The research, known as the STREK Project or the Sylvicultural Technique for the Regeneration of Logged-over Forest in East Kalimantan, started in 1989 and is scheduled to be completed in September.

The project includes the development of a reduced-impact logging technique and the inventory of biodiversity in Berau, which will be an essential data base for sustainable management practices in that region.

Silitonga said yesterday that selective cutting and planting, can reduce the negative impact of clear-cutting by at least 8 percent.

Reduced-impact logging is expected to reduce the impact even further.

The government said earlier this year that Indonesia's forests are shrinking at a rate of 809,000 hectares a year with the land being used for transmigration, agriculture and plantation projects.

The government claims that Indonesia presently has 144 million hectares of forest, of which 21 percent are designated as protection forests (for water and soil protection); 13 percent as nature reserves and national parks (for nature preservation); 22 percent as limited production forests; 23 percent as regular production forests; and 21 percent as convertible forests.

The government classifies protection forests, nature reserves and national parks as protected areas, off limits to felling. (pwn)