Jakarta City Reclamation Project ‘Disaster In the Making’

Arientha Primanita & Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 4 Jun 10;

The Jakarta administration’s reclamation project off the north coast of the capital is susceptible to sea-related disasters and will add to the capital’s social and ecological problems, an environmental expert warned on Thursday.

The northern coast is already an environmental mess prone to flooding, and choked with stinking garbage brought in by the 13 rivers in the Greater Jakarta area, said Slamet Daryoni, chief of urban environmental education at the Indonesian Green Institute.

He said the project — to reclaim a 32-kilometer-long stretch of land in Jakarta Bay to provide an additional 2,700 hectares of land — had failed to pass an environmental impact analysis, or Amdal.

“The shore’s environmental problems will not be solved if this project continues. The problems of the northern coast will only be worked out through restoration, like building buffer zones through the mangroves along the coast,” Slamet said.

“This project will do nothing to mitigate flooding, nor will it make up for the lack of green space and water catchment areas from which the city suffers.”

The project will stretch 1.5 kilometers out to sea. The city plans to place commercial hubs on the small islands that are formed.

“This reclamation of 2,700 hectares will simply be a business-oriented project, as it will only the people with money who will be served by it,” Slamet said.

He added the reclamation was nothing more than a way to satisfy the capital’s growing need for even more luxury residences, hotels and shopping malls.

“Fishermen who make a living along the northern coast will definitely not be the ones to benefit from this project,” he said.

Defying a Supreme Court ruling, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said on Wednesday that the city would proceed with the project despite warnings from activists that it could have dire environmental consequences.

“We will take legal steps and we are going to request a judicial review of that verdict,” said Fauzi, adding that in the meantime his administration would restart the project.

The plan to reclaim the land was proposed in 1994, but sidelined in 2003 by the State Ministry for the Environment, after its environmental impact analysis was rejected.

Peni Susanti, the head of the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency, said the project would go ahead based on a law and a presidential decree.

Peni was referring to Law No. 26 of 2007 on spatial planning and Presidential Decree No. 54 of 2008 that regulate spatial planning in the Greater Jakarta area and Puncak and Cianjur areas of West Java.

“The city is already on the right track,” Peni said. Legal wrangling over the reclamation has raged ever since.

The contractors initially working on the project filed a suit to overturn the ministry’s ban in the Jakarta Administrative Court.

The court ruled in favor of the contractors, but the project remained suspended following the ministry’s appeal of the court’s decision.

In July 2009, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State Ministry for the Environment. But the decision was only forwarded to the Jakarta Administrative Court in March.

Urban planning expert Yayat Supriyatna, from Trisakti University, said Jakarta had no other option but to reclaim land to address the current shortage.

“Jakarta doesn’t have any more space to accommodate further development,” he said. “The question is, how will land be reclaimed and what materials will be used? Where are they going to get the mud or sand from to reclaim the land?”

Yayat said he feared developers would dredge the rivers to get the sand.

The administration says the reclaimed land will be able to accommodate 1.5 million people.

State Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta said his office had not received the Supreme Court ruling.

“I can’t say whether or not reclamation and development should be stopped, as I don’t know what the letter says.

But I do know it will mean lots of investment opportunities,” Gusti said.