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.