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Illegal logging costing Indonesia
dearly
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia -
Illegal logging is costing Indonesia US$600 million
annually, Forestry Ministry Secretary General Wahyudi
Wardoyo said after opening the second Asia Forest
Partnership (AFP) meeting here.
"The loss does
not include the ecological destruction of forests and
the environment, as well as moral degradation," Wahyudi
said on Wednesday, quoting a World Bank report.
The material losses represent forgone taxes that
were not paid to the state, he said. He noted that
illegal logging should be seriously dealt with because
Indonesia loses an alarming 2.1 million hectares of
forest every year.
"The loss of forests
continues to increase year after year," he
said.
In an effort to curb illegal tree-felling,
the Forestry Ministry has to step up law enforcement, he
continued.
He also called on consumer countries
to ban the entry of illegal wood from Indonesia.
"In this AFP meeting, we would like to ask Asian
countries, such as Japan and China, as well as European
Union countries, which are the largest consumers of
Indonesian wood, to help us prevent illegal logging,"
Wahyudi said.
Among the issues to be tabled in
the AFP meeting are cooperation in supervising illegal
logging, preventing forest fires, and managing and
rehabilitating forests as the lungs of the world.
Fourteen countries are participating in the
conference, among them France, Australia, China, Japan
and Malaysia, along with the Asian Development Bank and
the Center for International Forestry Research.
(Asia Pulse/Antara)
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