North Sumatra needs hard work to restore mangrove forests

Antara 22 Jun 08;

Medan, N Sumatra (ANTARA News) - North Sumatra province needs to work hard to restore its mangrove forests most of which have been converted into shrimp ponds and oil palm plantations in the past few years, an official said.

"I don`t know the exact figure but the area of damaged mangrove forests along the eastern coast of Sumatra island accounts for 70 percent of the total area and it takes at least five to eight years to restore them," Head of the North Sumatra Provincial Environmental Impact Management Board (Bappedalda) Prof Syamsul Arifin said on Saturday.

Efforts to restore the damaged mangrove forests were badly needed to conserve the environment, stem natural disasters such as flood and increase fishermen`s income, he said.

"The damaged mangrove forests have led to a decline in fish production as fish feed does not grow as expected," he said.

The restoration of damaged mangrove forests worked slowly due to a lack of full supports from all stakeholders, he said.

"Today, only the government and certain quarters have been serious about restoring the mangrove forests while in fact all sides must take equal responsibilities as the mangrove forests serve their common interests," he said.

Earlier, the Forum of Journalists Caring About Karo (FJPK) said an estimated 2.4 million hectares of land in North Sumatra were in critical condition and 1.3 million hectares of it must be rehabilitated soon because they had the potential of causing disasters. (*)