Sungailiat, Bangka Belitung, April 27 (Antara Babel) - The Bangka Balitung provincial forestry ministry office said 15 per cent of forests in the province were damaged.
"The province has 659,000 hectares of forests but 15 percent of which have been damaged," Nazalyus , head of the regional office of the forestry ministry said.
Nazalyus attributed the damage mainly to illegal activities such as illegal tin mining and illegal opening of plantation in forest lands.
In general, however, forests in the province are still well preserved and the authorities are set to protect the forests by tight licensing procedure for logging companies, he said.
He said the people have to be involved in protecting the forests, adding forest preservation would not succeed without support from the local people.
"We have no forest rangers responsible for forest protection," he said.
He said so far there are only companies holding the license to develop industrial forest zone (HTI).
