Forestry Minister Agree 6,500 Hectares For Rural Forest in Bali

Denpasar (Antara Bali) - Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has approved a plan to  6,500 hectares of Bali's forest areas to become rural forests in several districts.

"The forest areas which will be diversified are located in Jembrana District (2,500 hectares), Buleleng (3,000 hectares), and in Bangli and Karangasem (1,000 hectares)," Anak Agung Ngurah Buana, Bali's provincial forestry office head, said here Friday.

The diversification program was proposed by the Bali governor and would be managed by rural people living surrounding the forest areas, he said.

"In the first stage, the management of the rural forests will involve hundreds of people in 15 villages surrounding the forests in Jembrana, Buleleng, Bangli and Karangasem districts," Agung Buana said.

The villagers will have the rights to manage the forest areas for 60 years and could be extended for another 35 years, according to Buana.

The rural forest management would be carried out in line with the ecosystem preservation and the local environmental wisdom of Balinese, he said.

Bali's forest areas cover a total of 130,686 hectares, consisting of  95,766 hectares or 73.28 percent of protected forests,  26,293 hectares or 20.12 percent of conservation forests, and 8,626 hectares or 6.60 percent of production forests.

The forest areas constitute just about 22 percent of Bali Island's land areas, while ideally the province's forests should be  30 percent of the island's land size.

According to Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan recently, Indonesia's forest area reaches 130 million hectares, and 40 million of them are in a good primary condition, 45 million hectares are critically damaged, and the remaining 45 million hectares had no planted trees.

About 17 percent of all species in the world can be found in Indonesia, although it accounts for only 1.3 percent of the Earth's land surface.(*)