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View all search resultsSeeking new, green capital city
While Kalimantan is indeed one of the regions in Indonesia that is relatively safer from geological disasters such as earthquakes, it is prone to other disasters such as forest fires. Thus, moving the new capital city to Central Kalimantan will be equal to trading severe air pollution in Jakarta with potentially thick haze.
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo walks through a Gunung Mas forest in Central Kalimantan. The capital of the province, Palangkaraya, is being considered as a possible site for the country’s new capital city. (Antara/Akbar Nugroho Gumay )
L
ast Friday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo asked for the House of Representatives’ consent for his plan to move the capital city to Kalimantan. The exact location, however, remains undisclosed. For now, there are two probable locations: Taman Hutan Raya (Tahura) Bukit Soeharto in East Kalimantan or a location called the “triangle area” between two regencies (Gunung Mas and Katingan) and Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan.
Both locations are historically rich. East Kalimantan once hosted the oldest kingdom in Indonesian history, namely Kutai Martadipura. Central Kalimantan is no less historically compelling. In the 1950s and 1960s, Indonesia’s first president Sukarno expressed his intention to move the capital city to Palangkaraya.
Further, moving the capital to the heart of Borneo is yet another challenge for the environment, which is currently facing serious pressure from all directions. The National Development Planning Agency’s (Bappenas) latest “Low Carbon Development” report this year highlights that Indonesia lost roughly 8 million hectares of primary forests between 2000 and 2017. Ten percent of Kalimantan’s forests alone were deforested even with the presence of Presidential Instruction No. 8/2015 on forest and peatland moratorium.
The report also argues that Indonesia’s performance in pushing its economy in a low-carbon trajectory is contingent upon two factors; the first is by recovering all degraded lands and forests and the second is by avoiding further land-use or forest losses in all concession areas that have yet to be converted.
If the latter is of utmost importance, then maintaining forest cover in conservation and protected areas is definitely
essential.
While Kalimantan is indeed one of the regions in Indonesia that is relatively safer from geological disasters such as earthquakes, it is prone to other disasters such as forest fires. Even now, residents in Central Kalimantan are wearing masks to protect them from thick haze emanating from ongoing forest fires. Thus, moving the new capital city to Central Kalimantan will be equal to trading severe air pollution in Jakarta with potentially thick haze.
