Govt urged to abandon road project
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Environmental and social destruction linked to the controversial Rp 1 trillion (US$112 million) Ladia Galaska highway project outweigh its economic value and it should therefore be abandoned, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) warned over the weekend.
Hajrul Junaid, a member of an NGO coalition opposing the Ladia Galaska road project, said that the government must not forget the huge flash flood in the neighboring North Sumatra province last November.
The flood in Bukit Lawang resort, Langka regency, North Sumatra, last year, which claimed more than 150 lives, highlighted the controversial road project as one of several possible causes.
"Conditions in the Leuser ecosystem region, where the 500- kilometer road project will be built, are not that different to those in Bukit Lawang," Hajrul told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
As the project would cut through steep, yet unstable hills, Hasjrul predicted that it would destroy the forests and ultimately cause landslide, flood or drought in the Leuser ecosystem.
Elfian Effendi, Greenomics Indonesia director, appealed to all parties to await the report of a team set up by forestry minister M. Prakosa last year to study areas prone to landslide along the line of the proposed project.
"We must await the result of the team's examination, which must also undergo public scrutiny," he said.
The Aceh administration, which strongly supports the road project, has announced that President Megawati Soekarnoputri is slated to visit Aceh on March 7 to inaugurate a number of projects undertaken by the Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure.
The Ladia Galaska project is likely to be among those inaugurated by the President.
Separately, Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh lashed out at the European Union (EU), which also opposed the highway project, saying that the move to oppose the construction of the road was a kind of latter-day "colonialization" against his people.
"Opposition to the project is only a trick and a kind of colonialization against the Acehnese. The central government and the Aceh administration are simply trying to bring to an end the isolation of people in remote areas," he said, adding that some 1.7 million people needed the road to improve their welfare.
Several EU commissioners have raised opposition to development of the road in the Leuser ecosystem region, which has been considered one of the world's "lungs".
"The European Union is correctly identifying the Leuser region as one of the world's lungs, but please don't destroy the actual lungs of Acehnese people in remote areas," Puteh said.
The highway, which connects the Indian Ocean side of Aceh with the Malaka Strait on its eastern side, links 23 small villages with a total population of less than several thousand residents, NGOs said.
The Leuser ecosystem region -- home to some 6,000 orangutans, 4,000 elephants, 200 tigers and 50 Sumatra rhinos-- is the only virgin forest of significant size on Sumatra.