Jembatan Kita

Illegal Logging

Ladies and gentleman, it is really a pleasure right to feel the fresh air, and see green forest along the road. In this globalization, forest has become a really important things, but unfortunately there are still many people who do not realize the important of forest, even they take it without noticing the impact.
Indonesia has 180 million hectare of forest, and the most is in Kalimantan island. This is the second largest forest in the world after Brazil. Unfortunately, exactly the deforestation case in Indonesia got the first place in the world. Based on State of the World’s Forests 2007 1,8 million hectare of forest in Indonesia lost every year and the amount is always increase. Imagine, if this is continue not more than 200 years our forest will be no more. The first causes of deforestation is illegal logging. By the increase of population growth, the needs for land and also other resources will also increase. This will affect in clearing the forest for land. Actually, the government through forest department have given quotes for forest logging. But not all the logging done legally, some irresponsible person cut forest more than the quotes.
The definition of illegal logging by itself actually is the pillage of woods which out of the laws in concerned area. Illegal logging may cause of a lot of negative impact to the environment and also human being.
As we know, forest is the habitat for many living things. Rainforest in Indonesia accommodate 28.000 species of plants and 350.000 species of animal. 20% of them are in danger like Sumatran tiger, orang utan, sandalwood tree and many more. Imagine, if all of the forest cut, where do those creature live? There are so many report that wild animals like tiger entered the village and ate the citizen’s cattle. Why did they do that? They, like human also need food, and because their habitat which is destroyed by human can’t provide enough food, they go to the village to look for food. At last, they will extinct and we can’t see them no more. Beside, forest also could be an attractive tourism object. Not only that, plants also produce oxygen, reduce carbon dioxide and reduce the pollution in earth, if forests cut, the temperature will be hotter, less oxygen and more carbon dioxide in air and also there is much pollution because nothing neutralized it. The bigger result is global warming. We must think of our child, our next generation so that they could also breathe the fresh air. The worst things are cutting of plants in forest could result in natural disaster like flood and land slide. Bare forest, can’t hold water, so in rainy season it could cause flood and land slide. From economic side, if we always take everything from our forest without taking care of it of course slowly it will disappear and finally we’ll have nothing more. If this already happen what could we do? What could we give to our child?
Very miserable right? So, what could we do to save our forest? Actually there are so many things to do to save our forest, even simple thing in our life actually could have big mean if done in large scale. First, we could plant some trees; one single tree could produce 14.000 l of oxygen and become habitat for several living things. For the logger, they should do selective logging and replant the forest by reforestation. After all, we hope that deforestation in Indonesia could be prevented. Forest has given a lots of things for us, so we could take care the forest. Who will save the forest if not us?