TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The damage to national parks in Indonesia is getting worse according to Hapsoro, the coordinator of natural resources at a the Telapak NGO. For example, 70 percent of the 300,000 hectare Tanjung Puting National Park (Kalimantan) has been damaged. Forty percent of the damage was caused by forest fires and the rest by illegal logging, said Hapsoro. Illegal logging has also damaged other Indonesian forests, including Bukit Barisan National Park where 60 percent of the total area is damaged because of illegal logging. In East Java, 23 percent of total forests are damaged. Sumarto, Head of the Directorate of Forest Protection at the Directorate General of Forest Protection and Natural Conservation, said that the report prepared by Telapak had been of great help to the Ministry of Forestry. He explained the damage reaches 2.4 million hectares per year and the situation get worse every year. Sumarto said that around 10 million cubic meters of wood were smuggled in 2001. In 2002, at least 10 million cubic meters of woods were smuggled abroad, he said. (Dewi Retno --- TNR)
