Save mangroves from logging

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)