Trees not at all happy about 'reformasi'

Trees not at all happy about 'reformasi'

SEMARANG: Central Java has lost nearly seven million trees
over the last five years since 1988 just from rampant illegal
logging, a councillor claimed on Wednesday.

The illegal loggers were estimated to have sold their ill-
gotten assets for some Rp 1.5 trillion (US$1.75 million), said
Sutoyo Abadi, a member of the Central Java legislative council.

"The looting during the 1998-2003 period (since wider autonomy
was granted to provinces following the reform movement) has
resulted in around 84,184 hectares of cleared land, or 12 percent
of the total forested areas of Central Java," he said while
claiming that the loggers were "local people".

The province is more than 3 million square hectares in total,
648,819 hectares of which were natural forests prior to 1998.

Between January and June this year alone, an estimated 150,000
trees were illegally felled, with an estimated value of nearly Rp
33 billion, Sutoyo said.

"The people of this province eventually suffer the
consequences of such wanton destruction of the natural
environment. Since this unregulated increase in illegal logging
began, Central Java has become much more prone to flooding during
the wet seasons," he added.

The central government has recently imposed a ban on logging
in Java to stop unchecked deforestation on one of the most
densely populated islands in the world. --JP