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by Abu Hanifah
JAKARTA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- The recent eruption of Merapi volcano located in Indonesia's Central Java province has damaged the biodiversity in conservatory forest around the volcano and several tourist destinations located near the volcano.
An official supervising the Merapi forest conservatory said that string of eruptions that had been going on since late October this year has damaged 43 percent of the conserved forest covering 6,410 hectares of area, located in Sleman, Boyolali and Magelang regencies in Central Java.
Total cost from the damage in the Merapi Conservancy Forest is estimated to reach 5.5 trillion rupiah (about 610 million U.S. dollars).
"That estimation was excluding the cost from the damage of 10 hectares of research forest located near the volcano," Tri Prasetyo, head of Merapi Conservatory Forest said.
Due to the damage in the conserved forests, Tri said that villagers around the volcano are facing imminent danger from landslide and flash floods.
"The scorched trees in that damaged area can no longer withhold the soil or massive water from floods. It is actually the secondary impact from a volcano eruption," Tri said in a recent report published by a local media.
He said that efforts to rehabilitate the conserved forest are facing problems with the alert status imposed on the volcano by the authority, saying that it would be very dangerous to carry out the rehabilitation efforts under the volcano's alert status.
Tri furthermore said that it would take 40 to 50 years to see the conserved area back to the condition before the eruption.
"Most 0f the pine trees scorched by the hot clouds were the large ones with 40 to 50 centimeters of diameter. It takes a very long time to grow those trees up to that size," he said.
Besides the huge cost from the damage in conserved forest, the volcano eruption also hampered the tourism business that consists of ancient temples and small resorts.
A potential loss of 17 million rupiah (about 1,800 U.S. dollars) per day was resulted from the volcano eruption that ensued until recently, earlier reports said.
Indonesia reopened the Borobudur temple for public this week after the world's largest Buddhist temple was cleaned from the volcano ashes covering all over its construction.
The authority has reopened airport in Jogjakarta, a town close to the volcano, after it was closed down for weeks due to the volcano's ash that endangers flights from and to the city.
Losses also reported from the damages of hundred hectares of snake fruit plantations ran by the public living around the volcano. Earlier reports said that the losses have reached billion of rupiah.
The eruption of the country's most active volcano has claimed more than 300 lives since its eruption that commenced late October. Most of the victims died from the volcano's hot clouds that invading their villages.
| Editor: Fang Yang |
Source
(Note the name of the editor. :-) Cute.)
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