Save mangroves from logging

BANDAR LAMPUNG: An expert has urged the government to save the country's mangroves from rampant logging.

M. Khazali of the Indonesia-chapter of Wetland International Program expressed his concern, that mangroves throughout the country had been neglected all these years, at a seminar here yesterday.

According to Khazali, Indonesia's 3.54 million hectares of mangroves, the largest in the world, represent about 20 percent of the world's mangrove forests. Nigeria comes second with 3.25 million hectares, Mexico has 1.42 million hectares, and Australia has 1.16 million hectares.

Mangroves provide social and economic advantages to people living across the east coast of Sumatra, near estuaries in Kalimantan, in the south and southeast coast of Sulawesi and on islands in Maluku and Irian Jaya, he said.

"We can find as much as 80 percent of marine species such as crabs, shrimps, shell fish, as well as birds and other animals living in the mangrove ecosystem," Khazali was quoted by Antara as saying.

Seven tons per hectare of mangrove leaves fall to the water each year creating organic matter for the food chain of the equatorial ecosystem. (26)