Denpasar (Antara Bali) - The government expects to plant 1,6 billion trees per year in national forests, Director General of Forest Production Affairs of the Forestry Ministry, Hadi daryanto, said here on Thursday.
"We hope the tree planting program will come to realization in year 2010 and years after," he said during a visit with Minister of Forestry, Zulkifli Hasan, to Bali Barat National Park on Thursday (Dec 31).
The program, he said, was aimed to rehabilitate at least 500,000 hectares of arid land in the forests each year. The government, he added, also hoped the tree planting program could prevent and overcome damage in 11 disaster-prone areas in Indonesia.
"An intensive effort to plant the trees is expected to conserve forest areas in the country," he said.
Indonesia has 126,8 million hectares of forested land consisting of conversion forests (23,2 million hectares), protected forests (32,4 million hectares), forests for limited production (21,6 million hectares) and conventional production forests (14 million hectares).
Hadi admitted the program to conserve 500,000 hectares of forests each year would need large amounts of funds as well as people's involvement.
In respond to the situation, he said, the government had recently implemented the tree planting program in production forests involving the communities living near the location.
Under the new scheme, he added, the people living around the forests could gain a profit from preserving the forests. (*)
Editor : Masuki
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