JAKARTA Indonesia will attempt to repair its reputation as one of the biggest contributors to deforestation by planting 79 million trees in one day next month.
The initiative is part of a global campaign to plant a billion trees and will precede a UN summit on climate change in Bali in December. “Everybody, residents and officials from the lowest unit of the Government to the President, will take part in this movement,” Ahmad Fauzi Masud, a spokesman for the Forestry Ministry, said. “It will be a national record and, possibly, a world record.” Indonesia had the fastest rate of deforestation in the world between 2000 and 2005, according to the environmental campaign group Greenpeace, which said that an area of woodland equivalent to 300 football pitches was destroyed every hour.
Delegates from 189 countries are expected to attend the summit to discuss a new agreement to fight global warming. The current agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, runs out in 2012. (Reuters)
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk
October 5th, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Strong currents swept at least 50 endangered Hawksbill turtles from Indonesia to Malaysia after recent earthquakes, an official said Tuesday.
The turtles were found Saturday by local villagers in debris washed ashore on a beach in Kuala Tunjang, Kedah state official Sani Mohamad Isa told AFP.
“The turtles landed on a muddy beach along with rubbish such as bottles that bore Indonesian labels. We suspect they are from the Sumatra area,” Sani said.
“In the last few days, it has been windy and the sea was quite rough,” he added.
Sumatra, separated from Malaysia by the narrow Malacca Strait, has been hit by a series of earthquakes since last month.
Sani said villagers and officials released the turtles back into the sea except for two that had already died and another four that were injured.
The injured Hawksbills will be treated and released after they have recovered, he said.
Sani said although turtles have been sighted in northern Malaysian waters, they have never been seen at Kuala Tunjang as the beach is not sandy.
“In the last five to 10 years, we had sightings of only one or two and that was on Langkawi island, not in Kuala Tunjang. What we found on Saturday is very rare,” he said.
The World Conservation Union lists the Hawksbill turtle and Leatherback turtle as critically endangered.
Source: http://afp.google.com
October 5th, 2007