Balikpapan promises to double any disturbed protected forest area

Forty-eight hectares of protected forest area that will be compromised to support the construction of a toll road connecting Balikpapan and Samarinda in East Kalimantan will be replaced by land area twice the size of the land acquired for the project, a senior local official said Saturday.

Balikpapan Mayor Imdaad Hamid promised the land would be replaced with property owned by state forestry firm PT Inhutani. He also promised that no buildings would be allowed to stand along either side of the road.

“The missing area can be replaced with an area twice its size. We have the substitute land in the West, which belongs to PT Inhutani,” Hamid said in Balikpapan, as quoted by kompas.com.

“Although we haven’t decided yet on the exact location for the substitute area, we will definitely replace the land [used for the toll road construction] with an area twice its size,” he said.

The Balikpapan-Samarinda toll way is planned to cut through the Sungai Manggar protected forest in Balikpapan over a distance of eight kilometers. The road width would be about 60 meters.