WB warned not to stop money

WB warned not to stop money

BENGKULU: The North Bengkulu administration warned that
illegal logging in the protected Kerinci Seblat National Park
would reach alarming levels, if the World Bank stopped or
decreased its financial aid for a forest conservation program.

"Locals living near the national park will come in to squat in
the forest area and slash down big trees to be supplied to
sawmills unless the government, with the help of World Bank
money, takes necessary actions," the deputy regent of Bengkulu
Utara, Inron Rosadi, cautioned here on Monday.

The World Bank is scheduled to wind up its financial
assistance project for conservation of the national park,
reportedly due to uncontrolled corruption, although at least one
Bank official said it was simply the end of the project term.

Hidayatullah Sahid, chief of the local forestry office, said
the local administration was seeking financial aid from the
central government to continue the conservation program in the
national park.

Some 20 percent of the 340,000-hectare national park has been
occupied by locals for farmland. --Antara