www.chinaview.cn 28 Nov 09;
JAKARTA, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- The deforestation in Indonesia takes up to 1.1 million hectares each year, while the government is only able to restore 500,000 acres each year, a local media reported here on Saturday.
Speaking in South Kalimantan province's capital city of Banjarmasin on Friday, the Environmental Affairs Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said that should such a condition continue to occur, it would endanger 30 to 40 million people around the country living around the devastated forests.
"Smog from the forest fire, extreme climate change, flood, landslide and other disasters are among risks taken by those living around the devastated forest," Gusti was quoted by the Kompas.com as saying.
He added that the heat that comes up from the rampant forest fire in Indonesia has increased temperature up to four degrees, raising the sea level up to 80 centimeters.
"Regarding that fact, I call on all people across the country to plant trees, at least one person for one tree. This is an essential attempt to slow down the pace of climate change impacts," Gusti said.
Gusti pointed out that Indonesia's future would depend on the efforts to preserve the forest, not the price of woods taken out from the forest.
Gusti added that the government has allocated 2 trillion rupiah ( about 212.7 million U.S. dollars ) each year, and would increase the allocation up to 2.6 trillion rupiah ( about 276.5 million U.S. dollars) to finance the reforestation efforts.
The wood industry and paper industry are the two manufactures that take woods in Indonesian forests, the minister said, adding that many forest areas had now turned into mining or plantation areas without having certain license from the government.
According to the minister, the unlicensed forest opening has been rampant in South Kalimantan, while in neighboring province of Central Kalimantan, it reached a million hectares. Similar situation also occurs in Sumatran forests.
Environmental damage in S Kalimantan alarming : minister
Antara 28 Nov 09;
Banjarmasin (ANTARA News) - Environmental damage in South Kalimatan has reached an alarming level, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said here on Friday.
He said South Kalimantan, known as the "province of one thousand rivers", would some day be hit by big floods if the serious environmental problem was not addressed properly.
"Uncontrolled deforestation, air pollution, and water pollution over the past 15 years are major problems in the province," the environment minister said.
The minister said fires and illegal logging activities in the 2003-2007 period alone had destroyed more than 1.7 million hectares of forest in the province.
He said the extensive forest damage in the province had diminished the water flows in river basins and therefore floods and landslides frequently happened.
In 2007 alone floods hit the province 32 times and in 2008 and 2009 the number continued to increase because of silting up of rivers and illegal logging activities.
Such a condition, according to environment minister, was worsened by the malfunctioning of rivers as a result of domestic and industrial activities.
To overcome the problems, the local government would launch clean-water and blue-sky programs, in addition to the construction of waste water management systems, and rehabilitation of degraded forests.(*)
