Forest Handling Coordination Still Weak
Wednesday, 20 December, 2006 | 16:40 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Forestry Department has said it considers that problems in the forestry sector are due to a lack of intergovernmental coordination.

The recent forest fires are examples of this weak coordination.

Boen Purnama, Secretary General of the Forestry Department, said the forest fires occurred because other institutions did not motivate their personnel to put out fires.

The result was that other institutions also did not carry out efforts to extinguish fires.

“This was not only the Forestry Department’s responsibility, but also other sectors,” he said yesterday (19/12).

He pointed put that other institutions which must be involved included the Agriculture Department, the Environment Department and the National Land Agency (BPN).

According to Boen, the lack of information access and forestry data updates were the causes of sluggish forestry case solving.

So the public’s interest and mass organizations’ support of national forestry programs was very low.

He said he was of the opinion that forestry data was already out of date and must be renewed.

To overcome this, said Boen, the department would solidify its rehabilitation and forest resources conservation policies.

These policies include a focus on forest and land rehabilitation, watershed management and forest fire control.

INDRA MANENDA ROSSI