Last month, Indonesia’s parliament passed a bill to relocate the country’s capital from Jakarta to the jungles of Kalimantan on Indonesia’s portion of the Borneo island.
Reflective of the country’s geography, Indonesia has named its new capital Nusantara, an old Javanese term that translates to “archipelago.” While Jakarta will remain the country’s commercial and financial centre, the government’s administrative functions will move to East Kalimantan. $32 billion will be dedicated to its construction over the next few years.
This milestone decision was made amid rising concern about the sustainability of Indonesia’s current political centre, Jakarta, which sits on swampy ground near the sea on the island of Java. Building heavy structures on the soft marshy surface of Jakarta has only accelerated its sinking.
According to researchers, at the heart of Jakarta’s problems lies clean water. Due to regular flooding, previous administrations built several slow-flowing canals and sea walls to prolong the island’s lifeline. However, unable to keep pace with rapidly increasing migration, this canal system has come under considerable stress. Piped water reaches only 60% of households in the city and unregulated waste dumping in rivers has resulted in some of the world’s most polluted water bodies. In addition, the impermeable concrete coat over Jakarta’s marshy foundation has prevented water from seeping back into the earth and recharging subsoil reservoirs.
Residents increased their use of borewells to combat this crisis; however, this has inadvertently resulted in the over-exploitation of groundwater tables. As water underground remains unreplenished and the city continues to be weighed down by its 147.7 million population, the world’s most populous island is now rapidly sinking.
Irrawaddy #dolphins have been discovered for the first time in West Kalimantan, a part of #Indonesian Borneo best known for its dense tropical forests and rich wildlife. Irrawaddy #dolphins are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). pic.twitter.com/yrYPbkiRBg
— Asia News (@asianewsteam) February 20, 2022
According to the World Economic Forum, Jakarta is one of the world’s fastest sinking cities. Studies show that some portions of north Jakarta, despite having a seawall, are sinking at an estimated 25 centimetres a year due to subsidence and over-extraction of groundwater.
The government hopes that by shifting its capital, it will be able to reduce the burden on the notoriously congested city of 10 million, which is beset by regular flooding. According to the government’s plans for Nusantara: all residents will reside within a 10-minute walk of green recreational spaces; all high rise buildings in the new capital will utilise 100% eco-friendly construction methods and be energy efficient; and 80% of the trips taken within the city will be by public transport, bicycle, or on foot.
But, is President Joko Widodo’s government vision of a low-carbon “super hub” that will promote sustainable growth and stave off disaster realistic?
Environmentalists fear not. While moving the Indonesian capital was unavoidable due to an impending ecological catastrophe, the endeavour cannot be expected to be environmentally friendly.
For one, the government has set aside 180,000 hectares of land to build the new city. Expected to be built in stages through until 2045, Nusantara will cover 2560 square kilometres, which is about twice the size of New York City. This, of course, means that large swathes of the luxurious Kalimantan rainforests, which are home to endangered and protected species such as orangutans, sun bears, and long-nosed monkeys, will be cleared.
As part of the move, 4.8 million administrative workers will move to the new capital. This is a significant and exponential change for the Kalimantan region, which is currently home to approximately only 900,000 people.
Indonesia’s new capital - #Nusantara - will sit on a 632,860-acre site, roughly four times larger than Jakarta. Several opportunities await #ForeignInvestors in this ambitious project..
— ASEAN Briefing (@ASEANBriefing) February 9, 2022
What #investment prospects does Indonesia's new capital offer? https://t.co/OK430MR6E9 pic.twitter.com/XJUv8D268M
Moreover, as Nusantara’s economy grows, it will extend beyond current city limits, particularly given that boosting economic growth is one of the principal goals of this strategy. In fact, this expansion has already been confirmed with the announcement of new infrastructure, such as the Trans-Kalimantan Northern link, to improve connectivity.
Corroborating this point, a study published in 2020 in the Land journal carried out by ecologist Alex Lechner of Monash University, Indonesia, indicates that “it is likely that [Nusantara’s] direct footprint could grow rapidly, expanding over 10 kilometres from its core in less than two decades and over 30 kilometres before mid-century.”
As things stand, Indonesia’s renewable energy sector makes up only 11.5% of national energy consumption. Keeping this in mind, unless there is a seismic shift in the energy sector, it is likely that Nusantara will emerge as a wholly sustainable city and reduce the country’s reliance on the vast coal-fired power plants.
Jørgen Steenfelt, technical director of marine and foundation engineering at consultancy group COWI A/S and an expert on urban water issues, has reasoned that the issues faced by Indonesia and the like are largely tied to insufficient regulations. Pointing to the examples of Tokyo and Venice, which have faced similar challenges to Jakarta in the past, Steenfelt says that Indonesian authorities must instead seek to “regulate this enormous overuse of water.” “At the root, it’s regulation. If you can’t regulate it, you have no control over what is happening,” he argues.
Promisingly, some ecologists, such as David Gaveau from TheTreeMap, hope that the move will offset the city’s impact with an equally ambitious effort elsewhere in the country, thereby “restoring all those degraded lands back to their original state: forest.”
Whether Gaveau’s hope comes true will become clear over the next few decades. As things stand, however, it appears that mitigation is no longer an option being considered by the Indonesian government, which has seemingly resolved to avoid dealing with the problem altogether. In the absence of the kind of regulations that experts like Steenfelt have demanded, one wonders whether the Indonesian government is simply fleeing from its problems and starting from scratch instead of investing time and effort into fixing existing issues. Keeping this in mind, while Jakarta’s sea walls have lent the government some time, is there any guarantee that Nusantara will not meet the same fate?