WWF says logging will wipe out Indonesian forest

WWF says logging will wipe out Indonesian forest

GENEVA (Reuters): The Tesso Nilo tropical forest, one of the world's most biologically diverse, could disappear within four years if logging persists at the current rate, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Monday.

The 1,800 square-kilometer forest on the island of Sumatra contains the highest level of lowland forest plants known to science, with up to 218 vascular species in just one 200 square- meter plot, a recent survey by the conservation organization showed.

But it said heavy logging for timber and pulp was having "devastating effects on both plant and animal life." The forest is also home to elephants, tigers, gibbons and tapirs.

"This forest could be lost in less than four years if the current rate of logging continues," the WWF said.

"We urge the Indonesian government to act now and set aside the Tesso Nilo forest as a protected area for the good of future generations," Agus Purnomo, Executive Director of WWF-Indonesia, said.

The Forestry Ministry has pledged to crack down on illegal logging, but the practice which according to the WWF involves communities, bureaucrats, military personnel and global market interests, still goes on.

"The logging that threatens Tesso Nilo is part of a pattern across the archipelago, where large financially-troubled corporations, often with foreign ownership, liquidate standing forests for a tiny fraction of their true economic potential and without regard to their biological value," it added.

The WWF, headquartered in Gland, Switzerland, also urged consumer countries, particularly the G-8 group of industrialized nations, to stop the international trade in illegal timber.