  For the BTZ black hole in the Einstein gravity, a statistical entropy has
been calculated to be equal to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. In this paper,
the statistical entropy of the BTZ black hole in the higher curvature gravity
is calculated and shown to be equal to the one derived by using the Noether
charge method. This suggests that the equivalence of the geometrical and
statistical entropies of the black hole is retained in the general
diffeomorphism invariant theories of gravity. A relation between the cosmic
censorship conjecture and the unitarity of the conformal field theory on the
boundary of AdS is also discussed.
