Fatal Floods, Massive Refugee Numbers WIll Continue Until Indonesia Deals With Deforestation - AFP

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JAKARTA (AFP) - Disasters such as the flash floods which have killed 100 people and displaced more than 400,000 will be repeated unless Indonesia takes swift action to restore forests lost to logging, activists and analysts have said. Conservationists and scientists say deforestation reduces the capacity of the ecosystem to regulate the water and also leads to soil erosion and landslides.

The Sumatra floods are the latest in a series of disasters blamed on deforestation and environmental degradation. "This is not the first time disasters like these have happened and the lesson still hasn't been learnt," Togu Manurung from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture said. "Disasters are happening back to back. In the rainy season we have floods and during the dry season we have extreme drought that causes fires and haze," the professor said.

Meteorologists said environmental factors were to blame for the flash floods in Sumatra as rainfall has not been unusually high during the rainy season.

"In the case of the recent floods, the environmental support capacity is the most determining factor since there are no unusual phenomena in the rain pattern," analyst Indro Santoso from the meteorological office told AFP.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061227/sc_afp/indonesiaweather_061227110618