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Indonesia urges EU to
reject some M'sia timber products
12:57:01 PM
Oct 15, 2003 AFP
Indonesia
wants the European Union to stop importing Malaysian wood products which are
made from illegally-felled Indonesian timber, a minister was quoted as
saying.
"We
have asked the EU to reject wood-related products from Malaysia because most of
them are believed to contain logs derived from illicit sources," the
Jakarta Post quoted Forestry Minister Muhammad Prakosa as saying Tuesday.
He
said Jakarta and EU representatives were holding talks on ways to preserve
Indonesia's severely denuded natural forests.
Prakosa
has also accused Singapore and China of accepting timber which has been
illegally felled in Indonesia and smuggled overseas. Other countries say it is
Indonesia's responsibility to crack down on rogue loggers.
Lawlessness
A report last year by the World Resources Institute, Global Forest Watch and
Forest Watch Indonesia said corruption and lawlessness had fuelled an epidemic
of illegal logging in Indonesia.
The
report said Indonesia is losing nearly two million hectares of forest annually
- an area half the size of Switzerland.
Forest
cover fell from 162 million hectares in 1950 to only 98 million hectares in
2000. - AFP
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