T

he Public Works Ministry, together with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Riau Islands provincial administration and Batam municipality, will develop Kebun Raya Batam (KRB) or Batam Botanical Garden in an 86-hectare area.

Abound with trees; the location is currently surrounded by several resorts and golf clubs.

Officials said the garden would function as a conservation center for coastal plants and was expected to become a new tourist attraction in Batam.

Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto recently officiated the groundbreaking ceremony of the project, marking the start of early stage construction.

The garden is expected to start operations in 2019.

'€œKRB'€™s reception zone will be funded by Rp 21 billion (about US$1.8 million) from the state budget. The garden is expected to become a world-class pioneer in botanical garden construction in Indonesia. It will balance the rapid growth of industrial and commercial areas in Batam,'€ he said.

KRB is among the 12 botanical gardens to be developed by the government over the next five years. The project will use up to Rp 336.5 billion of the total Rp 1.2 trillion allocated state budget funds. The funds will be disbursed in stages starting this year.

LIPI deputy head Djusman Sajuti said Indonesia'€™s biodiversity accounted for 10 percent of total biodiversity in the world. However, a variety of vegetation is at risk of extinction due to deforestation. He stressed the importance of botanical gardens housing collections suitable to their locations.

'€œThe Batam Botanical Garden will boast coastal vegetation collections. This suits the location of this garden,'€ he said.

Separately, Batam Mayor Ahmad Dahlan said his administration would fully support the development of KRB as well as an expansion area of 100 hectares. The expansion will encompass a mangrove forest currently located in the outer fringe of KRB.

'€œShould the planned KRB reservoir area be extended to the mangrove forests, its area could reach 100 hectares, making it bigger than the Bogor Botanical Garden (87 hectares) and even the Singapore Botanical Garden (74 hectares),'€ Dahlan told The Jakarta Post recently.

He said the inclusion of the mangrove forests would underline the characteristics of KRB as a coastal plant conservation center because mangroves were an integral part of the coastal area, which prevents erosion.

Dahlan was upbeat that the new botanical garden would draw many domestic and foreign visitors, especially from neighboring countries.

'€œMany foreign visitors, especially from Singapore and Malaysia, explore the mangrove forests in the Riau Islands. When KRB is completed, it could become a new tourist spot in the Riau Islands,'€ he said.

This year, Batam is targeting 1.5 million foreign tourist arrivals. Last year, the municipality saw 1,304,177 foreign tourists, higher than the targeted 1.2 million foreign tourist arrivals.

The foreign tourists mainly came from Singapore and Malaysia, followed by Korea, China, Japan, India, the United States and Australia.

Batam ranked third in terms of nationwide favorite foreign tourist destinations after Jakarta and Bali.