"It was not the Chinese alone but we had a lot of logging activities which were uncontrolled," said Bai Koroma, who won a September election on promises to tackle corruption.

"We are losing what is left of our environment and it is affecting our climate and other things," he said in an interview late on Thursday during a stopover in neighbouring Liberia.

"That is why we have imposed a temporary ban until we reorganise the entire logging industry."

The president, a 54-year-old former insurance executive, said logging companies should help reforest areas where they were active.

"Give or take a couple of weeks, by March we will be able to come out with a new policy direction," Koroma said.

A 1991-2002 civil war, which displaced a third of Sierra Leone's population, had prevented the country from formulating a comprehensive forestry plan earlier.

But Koroma has taken several environmental measures, including the creation of a 75,000-hectare national park in the Gola Forest, a former logging area near the Liberian border.

The national park -- only the country's second -- is home to leopards, chimpanzees and forest elephants.

More than 90 percent of the primary rainforests of the former British colony have been destroyed, but ecologists are keen to ward off desertification by protecting new forests.

TOURISM

As it rebuilds its economy, Sierra Leone hopes to benefit from enticing visitors to its tropical beaches, tree-carpeted mountain ranges and lush savannahs. Koroma aims to establish more parks to attract eco-tourism.

As part of government efforts to reduce Freetown's reliance on polluting diesel generators, Koroma said the long-delayed Bumbuna hydroelectric dam should be finished by the end of 2008.

The dam, located among hills about 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Freetown, was begun in the 1970s as an Italian aid project but was suspended because of the war, corruption and a lack of cash. It will provide 50 megawatts of power, enough to light up Freetown and other towns.

"We have put together the funding that is required to complete the dam," Koroma said. "Hopefully by June, all the work will have been completed ... and, all being well, by the end of 2008 we will have light from Bumbuna."

Work on the project stalled again last year because of a funding shortfall of 30 million euros (US$43 million), after looters stole 207 km (130 miles) of transmission cables and many of the pylons that link the dam to Freetown to sell for scrap.

The World Bank estimates lack of power reduces the country's economic growth, currently at 7.5 percent, by 1 to 2 percent. More than 70 percent of its 6 million people live in poverty.

After meeting his Liberian counterpart Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is trying to rebuild her country after a 1989-2004 civil war, Koroma said the dam could benefit Sierra Leone's neighbours Liberia and Guinea.