Malaysia to help Jakarta fight log smuggling
Date: 02-Nov-01
Country: INDONESIA
Malaysia's Primary Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik said his country would reject all logs from Indonesia.
"If the the logs are from Indonesia then they must be illegal, because Indonesia has already banned the exports of logs," Lim told reporters after meeting Indonesian Forestry Minister Muhammad Prakosa in Jakarta.
Bowing to international pressure, Indonesia last month banned log exports to protect its dwindling tropical forests.
Indonesia's tropical forests are the world's largest outside Brazil, but they are under serious threat by rampant illegal logging, as well as forest fires.
In the late 1990s, fires repeatedly hit the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Malaysia and Indonesia share borders on timber rich Borneo island.
