So this is it: the future capital of Indonesia will be called Nusantara. This name means “Archipelago”, and has been chosen to reflect the country’s geography. True enough, with more than 17000 islands, Indonesia is very much a large archipelago.
However, the location of this new city raises strong concerns from environmentalists.
The decision to move the administrative heart of Indonesia from Jakarta has been taken under environmental pressure. Indeed, the mega city is rapidly sinking at the rate of 25cm per year due to over extraction of groundwater. Congested with traffic and prone to flooding and earthquakes, Indonesian leaders have decided that it was time to “abandon ship”.
Heavy flood in Jakarta
The new capital will be built in East Kalimantan, a jungle-covered area, and this is a major issue to whoever is concerned about environmental matters. Indeed, Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo (shared with Malaysia & Brunei) is already facing important rainforest deforestation to favour palm oil cultivation. This unsustainable practice has already led to heavy flooding in South Kalimantan.
As a result, many could wonder what is the use of moving away from environmental disasters to create a similar situation elsewhere. Because building an entire capital in such a location will inevitably lead to heavy deforestation to make place for new constructions.
Nusantara -Winning concept design by urbanplus
Forest habitat loss will also lead to wildlife endangerement as the Kutai National Park is known for orangutans, long-nosed monkeys and sun bears.
”As summarised by Yohana Tiko, the executive director of the East Kalimantan branch of Walhi for ABC, “We don’t want the new capital to end up just moving [Jakarta’s] problems and disasters to East Kalimantan”.
Orangutans witnessing the loss of their home in Kalimantan
Unfortunately, it looks like that it is what Indonesia is very much planning to do. There is hope however, as the economic hub of the country will inevitably remain in Jakarta. We also need to remain confident that the country’s leaders will do everything in their power to anticipate the issues we raised in this article.