Efforts to protect the world's most important equatorial forests from illegal logging and wildlife poaching are getting a boost from a 4.5-million-dollar grant from the Asian Development Bank, the bank said Wednesday.
The Heart of Borneo, which covers 22 million hectares of forest areas, acts as the "lungs of the earth" but is under threat from illegal logging with an estimated 1 million cubic meters of timber smuggled out of the area every year.
Other harmful activities such as poaching also threaten the forest areas, which provide subsistence to an estimated 12 million indigenous and other local people, the Manila-based bank said.
The bank said the grant would help improve sustainable forest and biodiversity management, as well as sustainable livelihood opportunities in the Indonesian portion of central Borneo.
The programme's goals include a 2-per cent decrease in forest loss and a 5-per cent reduction in wildlife poaching by 2016, and the enactment of a draft national policy and reform agenda for forest resource management.