The failure in forestry development is due to a lack of trust."Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - A total of 48.8 million Indonesians live in forest areas, and 10.2 percent of them are classified as residing in poor communities, according to forestry observer Imam Suramenggala of Gajah Mada University (UGM).
"In addition, six million of them make their livelihood directly from the forest and about 3.4 million others work in the private forestry sector," Suramenggala remarked here on Friday.
Further, he noted, that forestry sectors development policies carried out by the government are unable to improve the economy and welfare of communities around the forest areas.
This happens because of the mutual distrust between the government and the public regarding the management of forest areas.
"The failure in forestry development is due to a lack of trust. There is a suspicion that the community has destroyed the forests," he said.
According to Suramenggala, with the continued degradation of forests timber productivity declines, and high poverty rates increase among those people living in and around forests, along with the emergence of conflicts in the use of forest resources, which illustrates the governments failure to achieve the goal of forestry development.
(Uu.O001/INE/KR-BSR/B003)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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