With rising waters threatening Java, Indonesia has created Nusantara, its new capital, which was inaugurated on Saturday. Associations and the population are warning about the environmental risks linked to the construction work, which is still underway, and about the difficulties that persist in Jakarta.
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Java is over. In Indonesia, the capital Jakarta and its 12 million inhabitants are suffocating due to traffic and pollution. The city is also threatened by rising waters. A few years ago, outgoing President Joko Widodo decided to build a new capital on the neighboring island of Borneo. It is called Nusantara, its construction began two years ago and even if the construction is far from finished, the inauguration ceremony takes place on Saturday August 17, Indonesia’s Independence Day.
With 4,600 copper blades to symbolize wings, the new presidential palace represents the bird-man Garuda, a figure from Hindu mythology. Around the brand new buildings, a tramway, a viaduct, and gardens outline the contours of a city with a futuristic air. However, the construction site is far from finished. A delay assumed by the outgoing president of Indonesia, Jacquot Widodo: “We want to show that we have the ability to build our capital according to our own plans, our own wishes. But this takes a lot of time.” More specifically, this inauguration is supposed to mark the end of the first of five stages of the construction of the city, which should accommodate two million people by 2054.
Indonesian authorities assure us that Nusantara is being built with respect for the local flora and fauna. Danis Sumadilaga is head of the Nusantara Infrastructure Working Group: “The main key to a forest town is environmental preservation. So we are developing the town based on its original topographical outline, without making any significant changes to it. We built the pond there because the area was naturally a body of water.”
These arguments are unacceptable to the local population, but also to NGOs. Fruit trees have already been destroyed, especially since the area is home to a large population of orangutans. This is not the only reason that makes NGOs jump. Zenzi Suhadi, the director of Walhithe oldest NGO in the country, responded to the France Culture microphone of Juliette Pietraszewski last May: “The current capital Jakarta is already in serious environmental trouble.”
“It is not right that the government leaves the people with this problem of overpopulation and moves the capital to Kalimantan.”
Zenzi Suhadi, director of the NGO Walhifranceinfo
Kalimantan, which refers to the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, where Nusantara is located. The inauguration ceremony takes place on Saturday, August 17, but the official decree transferring the status of capital could take place after President-elect Prabowo Subianto takes power in October.