US Govt Donates $5.5 mln for Indonesia`s Forest Preservation

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The U.S. Government has donated $5.5 million dollars through World Resources Institute (WRI) to support forest preservation in Indonesia.

Vice American Ambassador to Indonesia Kristen Bauer said during a press conference at the American cultural center (@america) here on Wednesday night, that the donation would be used for Global Forest Watch (GFW) program development.

Bauer said the project mainly will develop a mapping technology that produces reliable data of the deforestation in Indonesia.

"So this scientific data will support the Indonesian government in mapping the deforestation," she noted.

Through the project, Bauer said the U.S. aims to contribute in making people realize that the deforestation is happening in Indonesia and then, able to do something to resolve it.

"I think this technology likes other technology, brings information to everyone. Both to official and to people. So, I think it is a revolution that brings real-time information of where the deforestation is happening," she noted.

However, Bauer said whether the technology would be useful to decrease the deforestation rate, it would depend on Indonesia itself.

"Hopefully this will be useful for the people, but whether people or government is gonna use it or not yo use it, it depends entirely on Indonesia, and Indonesia should decide its useful or not useful," she added.

The Global Forest Watch (GFW) is an application being developed by World Resources Institute (WRI), which provides data, statistics and other information about the deforestation around the world, and now available for Indonesia.

"Simply you can call it the Google map of deforestation," said Andhyta Utami, a research assistant of forest and landscape restoration at the WRI Indonesias office.(WDY)