Spotlight - 14.2019

IN THE SPOTLIGHT 14/2019 Spotlight 9

INDONESIA

Jakarta: not so capital?

ADVANCED

Jakarta is in trouble. Forty per cent of Indonesia’s capital lies be-
low sea level, and because of mismanaged aquifers, heavy rains
and rising rivers and seas, parts of the city are sinking between 10
and 20 centimetres each year. Pollution and traffic are dreadful,
too. Joko Widodo, president of the island nation in South-East
Asia, plans to “save” the capital by moving it to a better location.

Most of the 10 million residents of Jakarta will stay in place,

but by 2024, the city will change: it will lose its administrative

functions as well as 1.5 million government employees. These

will move 1,000 kilometres away to Borneo, where a new city

will be built near the urban centres of Balikpapan and Samarin-

da, each with a population of 850,000.

Conservationists say there is a catch: the land in question is

close to some of the planet’s greatest tropical rainforests. As The

Guardian reports, critics worry that the capital is quite simply

leaving one environmental disaster to create another.

Bambang Brodjonegoro, Indonesia’s planning minister, re-

portedly told the South China Morning Post that the project “will

not disturb any existing protected forest”. Activists remain

skeptical, however, saying rare rainforest dwellers, such as the

orangutan, will probably be affected.

affect [E(fekt]

, betreffen, beeinträch-

tigen

aquifer [(ÄkwIfE]

, wasserführende

Schicht

catch [kÄtS]

, hier: Haken

dreadful [(dredf&l]

, furchtbar, entsetzlich

dweller [(dwelE]

, Bewohner(in)

reportedly [ri(pO:tIdli]

, angeblich, Berichten

zufolge