Kalimantan Native Laments New Capital Project Over Alleged Land Conflict
Translator
Editor
15 March 2022 23:58 WIB
A sense of disappointment was visible as she recalled this incident. She said locals feel let down by the President's decision to prioritize camping at the site rather than address the problem of land acquisition, which she believes had gone to deaf ears.
“We don’t need the camping event. What is it for? No one is benefited by that,” she asserted.
Meanwhile, East Kalimantan Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) representative, Pradarma Rupang, said the new capital project could potentially evict 20,000 local customary communities. He said that these people are natives who had lived in the forest area far before the new capital construction plan was made public.
“The total of 260 hectares [of the new capital area] is not an empty land. There are settlements there,” Rupang said.
He made it clear that 40 percent of the entire new capital construction area is settlements. A piece of data was even confirmed by the Ministry of Agraria and Spatial Planning. He fears that if the government green-lights the construction, there will be 53 villages surrounding the new capital area affected by possible pollution.
Meanwhile, WALHI's forest and garden campaigner, Uli Arta Siagian, said that the government had always assumed that the forests in Kalimantan are unoccupied land. In fact, he said, people do live there.
Read: Jokowi: New Capital will Be a Forest City of Endemic Plants
M JULNIS FIRMANSYAH