Govt to relocate parts of Ladia Galaska road
Govt to relocate parts of Ladia Galaska road
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government is planning to relocate sections of the
controversial Ladia Galaska road project to minimize destruction
in Gunung Leuser National Park, a cabinet minister has said.
It was not immediately clear, however, if the sections would
be relocated away from the park, with Minister of Forestry M.
Prakosa saying only that the matter would be decided later.
"One section to be relocated is a 14-kilometer stretch of road
in East Aceh," Prakosa said before meeting President Megawati
Soekarnoputri on Monday.
"Apart from that section, some others pass through river
basins and might be relocated as well," Prakosa said.
The Ladia Galaska road project connects Meulaboh on the Indian
Ocean side of Aceh with Perlak on the Malacca Strait, via
Takengon, Blangkejeren, Pinding and Lokop.
Almost half of the route passes through Gunung Leuser National
Park, especially the part linking Blangkejeren, Pinding, Lokop
and Penaron in East Aceh.
Prakosa said the decision to relocate some parts of the road
was taken after he, along with State Minister of the Environment
Nabiel Makarim and Minister of Settlement and Regional
Infrastructure Soenarno, visited the site.
He also said that a team from his office would leave for the
Ladia Galaska project area on Tuesday to study the project.
"The team will make a full feasibility study on the routes and
is slated to complete the analysis by Dec. 31, before we decide
where to relocate the roads," Prakosa said.
The Ladia Galaska project has come under public scrutiny
following the recent Bahorok flash flood that caused the death of
over 130 people in Langkat regency, North Sumatra, last week.
Prakosa, however, suggested on Monday that the controversial
road project had nothing to do with the incident, which has left
over 100 people missing.
"Ladia Galaska is located far away from Langkat; there is no
connection at all, so we shall continue with the project," he
said.
A study by the Leuser Management Unit (UML) said that massive
deforestation, including that for the road project, had caused
the flash flood.
Earlier, Nabiel said that the road project should be stopped,
underlining that it would also open up access for illegal loggers
to transport their stolen logs.
Soenarno, however, defended the project, saying that the
people of East Aceh needed the road to end their isolation and
improve the transportation infrastructure.
The three ministers agreed on Monday that the Bahorok flood
was a natural disaster that had nothing to do with the Ladia
Galaska road project.
"From the site we visited, we saw that trees had been uprooted
by heavy rain, so it was not because of illegal logging," Nabiel
said on Monday.
Remote sensing expert from the National Survey and Mapping
Agency (Bakorsurtanal) Aris Poniman said that satellite photos
showed that the forest at Leuser was in a good state.
"However, the slopes in the mountain have an incline of more
than 70 degrees; with heavy rains there can be flash floods. In
Langkat such landslides occur every 10 years," Aris said.
He emphasized that the disaster had occurred because people
had settled in the area, which lay in the path of a river.
"The same kind of flash flooding also occurs in Papua all the
time but receives very little publicity because nobody lives
there," Aris said.