Beach erosion worsens in Tangerang

Beach erosion worsens in Tangerang

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

Arnan, a food stall owner, looks out from his small beach-front
bamboo hut and spots the submerged concrete ruins engulfed by the
Java Sea.

"About 500 meters from the coast is where my home used to
stand," said the 45-year-old Arnan, pointing at the seemingly
endless sea.

Arnan, who lost his home to beach erosion 11 years ago, is one
of numerous residents along the north coast of Tangerang regency,
Banten, who have been forced to move inland because of what
locals allege is the illegal mining of sand.

Concrete rubble is the only sign left of the homes, fish ponds
and shrimp farms that once existed on dozens of hectares of land
that fell to the pounding waves in the coastal villages of Karang
Serang, Tanjung Anom and Marga Mulya, where the sand mining takes
place.

"If the sand mining continues, this village will eventually
disappear into the sea," Arnan, a resident of Karang Serang, told
The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The chief of Karang Serang village, Firdaus, said he was
powerless to stop the illegal mining.

"The government should take stern action against it," he said.

Compounding the problem is the fact that hundreds of residents
make their living by dredging up the beaches and filling up
trucks with sand.

"I can earn up to Rp 100,000 (US$11) a day from sand mining,"
said Murdih from the village of Marga Mulya.

The head of Marga Mulya village, Wardi, said stopping the
mining would only cause more social and economic problems because
most of the miners were village residents.

He said he had made several attempts to halt the mining, but
gave up each time in the face of protests by villagers.

"They rely on sand mining as their main source of money," said
Wardi, whose village has a population of 5,259.

The village head in Tanjung Anom, Muhamad Ali, said he had
tried in vain to persuade residents to stop the mining.

Ali said he tried to explain to residents that their actions
were damaging the environment, but the residents were more
concerned about making a living.

"They always say it is a matter of filling their stomachs,"
Ali said. "It gives me a headache when they reason like that."

Recently built 800-meter wave breakers built by the Air Force,
in addition to the 500-meter wave breakers built by the Tangerang
regency administration in 2001 in Tanjung Anom, have been able to
minimize the damage caused by the mining.

"However, the waves still continue to erode other areas of the
2.5-kilometer-long beach that runs in front of the villages. Over
the past 15 years, at least one and a half kilometers of the
coastline has been reclaimed by the sea," Ali said.