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RI at risk of losing territory from coastal erosion

The government is concerned about the potential threat to its national borders posed by coastal erosion caused by the destruction of mangrove forests on four outermost islands of Riau province near Malaysia and Singapore

Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, June 11, 2019

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RI at risk of losing territory from coastal erosion

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span>The government is concerned about the potential threat to its national borders posed by coastal erosion caused by the destruction of mangrove forests on four outermost islands of Riau province near Malaysia and Singapore.

The government, through the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister, recently hosted a meeting to draft mitigation programs and is now planning to hold another meeting soon.

In the coordination meeting last month, the office brought together experts, scholars and relevant government officials to discuss the potential loss of territory due to the erosion of outer islands near the Malacca Straits.

The office’s deputy head for natural resources and service coordination, Agung Kuswandono, said such concerns arose after data was analyzed that showed that more than half of Indonesia’s mangrove forests had either been lost or were damaged.

“When we saw the data about mangroves in Indonesia, which showed that about 52 percent of them had been lost or damaged, we clustered them [into groups to give us a perspective on where] should we prioritize the rehabilitation,” Agung told the meeting in May, as quoted in a press statement.

The cluster analysis, he said, showed that Riau province was of major concern, with mangrove forests on four of its outer islands — Batu Mandi Island, Rupat Island, Rangsang Island and Bengkalis Island — having been severely damaged and the islands themselves experiencing significant coastal erosion.

Mangrove forests are considered a crucial natural defense against coastal erosion.

“It turns out this issue not only concerns the ecosystem or the environment, but also poses [potential] risks to sovereignty because when the mangroves are damaged, the land is exposed to abrasion. So, there is concern that our borders will shift, especially in areas bordering the Malacca Straits, Malaysia and Singapore,” he said.

The coastline of Rangsang Island in Meranti Islands regency had receded by around 1 kilometer, according to Agung.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that the normal baseline for measuring the breadth of territorial seas is the low-water line along the coast.

Indonesia is currently in several ongoing border negotiations with Malaysia, including discussions over the southernmost part of the Malacca Straits. Last year, the two countries announced they had agreed on a “technical and legal basis” for two delimitation proposals in the Malacca Straits and in the Sulawesi Sea.

The Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister is currently seeking input to develop more detailed data on the damaged areas, scenarios for installing breakwaters and plans to rehabilitate mangrove forests, as well as to strengthen existing programs to protect mangroves and empower communities that live in mangrove forest areas,

Riau Governor Syamsuar told the meeting in May that experts could provide scientific input based on a comprehensive study.

“These islands have different characteristics. For example Rangsang Island has no sand, but Bengkalis has. Therefore the solutions should be different,” he said, as quoted in the press statement.

The office’s assistant deputy for environment and maritime disaster, Sahat Panggabean, meanwhile, said that his office would collect more inputs from experts and relevant stakeholders to create an action plan and its completion timeline, which would be discussed at the ministerial level on Tuesday.

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