AN EPIDEMIC of illegal logging is being blamed for Indonesia’s soaring rates
of forest loss over the past four years. It is now responsible for up to a
quarter of all the forest that disappears globally every year.
According to a detailed study of Indonesia’s forests, published last week in
Washington DC and Jakarta, the country’s annual loss of natural forest doubled
in the 1990s to 2 million hectares. One of the study’s authors, Togu Manurung of
Forest Watch Indonesia, told Â鶹´«Ã½ the figure has almost
doubled again since 1998, and could now be approaching 3.6 million hectares.
“This is due to the worsening situation…
