A grand new state palace shaped like the mythical bird Garuda towers over a dusty construction site: a mass of steel and concrete emerging from the once-pristine forests of Borneo.
It is the centrepiece of Nusantara: Indonesia’s new capital city, and the president is already hard at work inside.
His fledgling city will be inaugurated on August 17, Indonesian Independence Day, after a two-year build that is projected to cost IDR466 trillion (US$30 billion) when done.
Completion is not due until 2045 - grand government offices, sought-after housing and business parks are yet to take shape - but debate is already fierce about the environmental pros and cons of such an ambitious relocation.
Detractors say the project, aimed at ironing out economic inequality, comes at too steep a price, swallowing vast swathes of forest and ancient mangroves that are rich in biodiversity.
Already, they say, the region has lost land too heavily to big plantations and mining concessions, displacing threatened flora and fauna, from leopards to dugongs and dolphins.
Now the new city is making things even worse, they say.
“Nusantara is just another driver of deforestation,” said Anggi Putra Prayoga, communications manager at Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), a non-governmental environmental organisation.
“This is contrary to the green city jargon we heard a lot of times. There’s nothing green in Nusantara,” he told Context.
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The development … is based on a spatial plan that dedicates more than half of the total area as a protected area. However, rapid development … is not free from the risk of illegal activities such as forest encroachment and illegal mining.
Troy Pantouw, spokesperson, Indonesian government
For its part, the government says the city - which will span 256,000 hectares (633,000 acres)- boasts unprecedented green credentials.
President Joko Widodo has hailed his “green” and “inclusive” dream - a capital powered by sun, river and sea - and has even started working from his unfinished palace to signal support.
A capital city for all
Modelled after the capitals of Brazil and Australia, Widodo says replacing Jakarta with Nusantara will lessen the regional inequality that exists countrywide.
Currently, economic might is concentrated on Java island, home to Jakarta, whereas Widodo hopes the new central seat of power will help spread prosperity to a wider population.
Hopes aside, the build is also driven by hard facts, since the current capital is struggling: overcrowded, some 40 per cent of it lies under sea level and Jakarta sinks 5-10 cm each year.
But such a big move carries big risks, too - and campaigners say the nation has already paid a heavy price for economic progress, with profit often taking precedence over nature.
Home to one-third of the world’s rainforests and more mangrove forests than any other country on Earth, Indonesia is a nature reserve like no other.
Construction roads now snake a dust path through its lush tropical hills, crisscrossing eastern Borneo’s bountiful Balikpapan Bay, site of the new capital.
Its forests teem with crucial biodiversity and store vast amounts of carbon, and the plans to level trees run counter to government promises to restore the nation’s shrinking forests.
Environmentalists say the country has lost more than 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) of primary forest to the site, adding to earlier losses to palm oil, mining, pulp and paper making, as well as a rapid programme of urbanisation to meet the needs of a fast-growing population of 270 million.
Detractors fear the big build may also threaten what progress Indonesia has made in recent years guarding its unique nature, be it by clamping down on big industry encroachments or safeguarding some sites of special interest.
Government spokesperson Troy Pantouw said the president plans to protect and replant almost 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of forests, ring-fencing 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of green space within Nusantara.
“The development … is based on a spatial plan that dedicates more than half of the total area as a protected area,” Pantouw told Context.
“However, rapid development … is not free from the risk of illegal activities such as forest encroachment and illegal mining.”
The government has tried to slow forest degradation and deforestation by imposing a moratorium on peat-land clearance for palm oil. It has also introduced harsher penalties for slash-and-burn practices by farmers and plantation companies.
Troubled build
Construction, even in this initial phase, has been dogged with multiple problems - be it thin interest from foreign investors, missed deadlines, disputes over land ownership and environmental degradation.
Myrna Asnawati Safitri, the government official tasked with mitigating the build’s ecological impacts, denied any setback to its efforts to reverse deforestation, saying the trees at risk were anyway commercial plots already earmarked for felling.
“So the new capital city will not destroy the nature,” Safitri said during Nusantara Fair, a government event held earlier this year to promote the city to younger generations.
Deforestation in Indonesia has slowed over the past six years in part due to a moratorium on new palm oil plantations, better law enforcement and improved fire prevention, said Mikaela Weisse, Director of Global Forest Watch at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a think tank.
However, these overall figures hide a 27 per cent increase in primary forest loss – or old-growth forest rich in stored carbon – in 2023 from the previous year, according to a WRI analysis.
Borneo is one of the richest tropical rainforests in the world, surpassed only by the Amazon and Congo rainforests.
It also plays a vital role as a carbon sink, storing vast amounts of carbon in its trunks and leaves, helping remove harmful greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.
Local communities will also come under threat, activists say, as indigenous communities who live near the bay rely on its mangroves to catch fish, shrimp and crabs.
“The construction and the existence of Nusantara will alter the function and ecology of Balikpapan Bay,” Fathur Roziqin, executive director of East Kalimantan’s Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI), an NGO, told Context.
“It will also impact the livelihood of local communities who for generations rely on the rich ecosystem,” he said.
Clearing land - home to Irrawaddy dolphins and saltwater crocodiles - would also run counter to government efforts to rehabilitate its mangroves, a drive aimed at restoring natural barriers to tidal waves.
Prayoga of FWI said the government must compensate for the destruction by planting new forests elsewhere or else commit to significantly cut deforestation on a national level if it wants future generations to buy into its green rhetoric.
“If the government claimed it will be a forest city, it’s not a long-term climate solution,” said Prayoga.
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://www.context.news/.
