Jokowi: New Capital will Be a Forest City of Endemic Plants
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15 March 2022 21:28 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo or Jokowi said that the new capital of Indonesia, which is named Nusantara, will be a forest city. The area, which is currently a forest of monoculture and homogeneous industrial plants, will be turned into a forest of endemic plants.
"This means that the forest will be preserved as-is," Jokowi said during a speech at the Nusantara development site in East Kalimantan, Tuesday, March 15, as broadcast via the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube account.
Jokowi said that the concept aims at making the new capital more beautiful. As a city of an endemic forest, the president hopes that Nusantara will be a habitat for various beautiful animals.
"It will attract birds and butterflies," he said, standing on the spot where the presidential palace would be built.
Widodo said the plan is to cut down industrial plants, which currently fill the area, every seven years. The site will be replanted with various other plants so that it becomes an endemic forest.
For said purpose, the government has built the Mentawir Nursery in Mentawit Village, Sepaku District, North Penajam Paser. On Monday, March 14, the president visited the area.
He said that the nursery can produce 15 to 20 million trees seedlings over the next six to seven months. The seedlings will be transported to Nusantara and planted in critical lands to rehabilitate the forest that was damaged by the capital city development.
Jokowi visited the Nusantara construction site in North Penajam Paser on Monday. Together with the governors of all provinces in Indonesia, he conducted the 'Kendi Nusantara' ceremony of pouring soil and water from all provinces into a large jug that was placed at the new capital's Point Zero Monument.
