BOGOR, Indonesia, April 28 (AFP) – Indonesia’s forests are disappearing at a rate of 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) a day and the government appears to be unable to do anything about it, experts said. "The situation is getting worse and we should do something," said Jeffrey Sayer, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

JAKARTA – When representivives onesia’s principal aid and financial donors meet here Tuesday and Wednesday, they will not be simply g evidence of progress in returning the country’s administration, finances, banks and companies to health.the first time, the 33 members of consultative Group on Indonesia so be seeking firm assurances that e government will take action to stern an alarming increase in the rate at which (lie country’s tropical forests – second in size only to of Brazil – are disappearing, mainly is a result of illegal logging.

Jakarta (JP): Indonesia’s t management will be the main issue in next week’s donors meeting in Jakarta, the World Bank’s country director Mark Baird said on Wednesday. Baird noted that Indonesia’s donors in the Consultative up on Indonesia (CGI) were much concerned about rapid deforestation in the country and would, therefore, and the government stop it.

The general worldview of tropical forests appears to be of dwindling fragile ecosystems, losing the battle daily against human depredation. As a result, according to conventional wisdom, battle lines must be drawn and an immediate and total halt called to deforestation. While this is the’ position of some environmental groups, in reality, it’s not only bad science but economically impossible and socially unacceptable. Fortunately, a moratorium on deforestation is unnecessary for the preservation of the earth’s forests.

A Shifting Equation Links Modern Farming and Forests.

New research is raising questions about sustainable growth, a notion dear to both environmentalists and development specialists. Both camps have embraced the assumption that improving agricultural practices in the developing world should relieve pressure to cut down nearby forests. But when looking at more than two dozen cases of deforestation, economists David Kaimowitz and Arild Angelsen of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia, noticed that the real-world equation was a bit more muddled: In Brazil, for example, a new strain of soybeans planted by farmers wound up accelerating the destruction of the tropical forest, while in the Philippines an irrigation project protected a tropical forest elsewhere on the same island.

Credits: The following article appeared in the 12 November issue of Science, page 1283, and is being reprinted with permission.