Muaro Bungo, Jambi (ANTARA News) - Forestry Minister MS Kaban said that Indonesian forests were experiencing a chronic `ailment` or serious damage which needed a long time to cure.
"The chronic disease infected the forests as a result of mismanagement in the past which has now affected forest industries and timber companies," the minister said when inaugurating a rural forest project in Lubuk Beringin hamlet, Bungo district, here on Monday.
Forests were damaged as the result of weak government control and mismanagement by forest concessionaires (HPH), timber estates (HTI) and licensed plantations (HGU), he said.
The bankruptcy of forest industries has cut the state`s foreign exchange earning and caused forest theft or illegal logging, the minister said.
In the past, the biggest earner of the country`s foreign exchange was the forestry sector while the oil and gas came only in the second list.
But the past exploitation has adversely caused destruction of our forest now and created different kinds of natural disasters such as floods and drought.
In the new order government era, the conditions of Indonesia`s natural resources were good, such as those of forest, mining and marine resources, which all contributed significant incomes to the state, he said.
He said that over the past three years the government had been launching a forest plantation movement. Through the movement, a total of 1.9 million trees had been planted.
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