Lack of infrastructure, skilled workers hamper remote regions

Rita A. Widiadana, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

Toli-Toli and Nabire, remote regencies in Central Sulawesi and Papua respectively, lack infrastructure and qualified human resources to develop their abundant natural resources and cultivate democracy as required by the regional autonomy law.

The two regencies are typical of hundreds of remote regencies that are rich in natural resources.

Nabire, with a population of 116,357, has huge potential in agriculture, forestry, mining and marine resources but still faces numerous hurdles in implementing autonomy due to a dearth of infrastructure and qualified human resources.

Nabire Regent Anselmus Petrus Youw said at an exposition on regional autonomy here on Thursday that the regency depended heavily on traditional transportation, as well as on missionaries who operate small planes to reach remote areas in the regency.

He said the central government had granted special autonomy to Papua and allotted the province a bigger share of proceeds from natural resources, but most indigenous people had yet to understand what special autonomy was.

"We have pressed the central government and provincial administration to speed up the development of sea and land transportation to end the regency's isolation and to accelerate development in all sectors in the regency," he said.

He said he had placed priority on development in health, education and transportation to help the regency catch up with developed regencies.

Marthen Waibusi, chairman of Nabire's expo delegation, insisted that Nabire needed more funds to develop its human resources, infrastructure and natural resources.

"We have a 10-year Kenyang (Full and Nutritious), Sehat (Healthy) and Pintar (Smart) Program that ends in 2010," he said, adding that by then the regency's human resource would be better able to manage their own resources.

"It is a transitional period, and we still have to learn a lot about how to manage our abundant resources," he said.

Total plantation land in Nabire covers 69,202 hectares consisting of 4,771 hectares (4 percent of the total) in small- scale plantations and 64,521 hectares in large-scale plantations.

Anselmus said that in the plantation subsector, the regency produced valuable commodities such cacao, coconuts, coffee, cloves, kapok, cinnamon, cashew nuts, pepper, vanilla and sugarcane. Total production from these commodities reach a total of 1,458 tons.

The regency also has enormous potential in marine and fishery, with 690,750 hectares of sea area, more than 139,300 hectares of swampy land and 113,975 hectares of river areas.

The annual potential of fish production is estimated at 1,1 million tons. The maximum sustainable yield from the sea is 5,400 tons with a utilization rate of only 2.26 percent.

Fishpond production is 20,000 tons annually with a utilization rate of only 19.44 percent and freshwater cultivation of 17,241 tons with a utility rate of only 5.26 percent. The production of fish is targeted to meet the demands of the domestic market as well as the export market to Japan, Singapore, the United States and other countries.

Like other regencies in Papua, Nabire has extremely unexploited mining deposits throughout its subdistricts such as in Yaur (quartz sand, granite and marble), Napan (gold), Nabire (gold), zinc, kaolin, gold and copper.

In addition, Nabire also has a number of big rivers such as Siriwo, Cemara, Otowa and Wanagar rivers that can be used to generate enough electricity to meet the power demand in the province.

Contribution from the forestry sector reaches around Rp 1.8 billion resulting from profit of forestry resources and Rp 733 million from the reforestation fund.

"The regency is open for investment opportunities, especially for foreign investors in the plantation and mining sectors," he said.

Meanwhile, M. Yunus Hamid, head of the trade and industry office in Toli-Toli regency, explained that although the regency was an isolated area, it had a large variety of plantation and forestry resources that had yet to be managed and utilized optimally.

"Currently, Toli-Toli is the largest producer of cloves in Sulawesi, but the sharp price fluctuation has caused our farmers great losses," he said.

The regency produced 3,440,770 tons of cloves in 2001. In the last few years, the price of cloves was Rp 80,000 per kilogram, but has since dropped to Rp 20,000 per kilogram because of the flood of cloves imported from abroad by cigarette companies in Java, he said.

The regency also has other profitable commodities including coconut wood, rattan and other forestry products.

"But, we don't have enough infrastructure to support our industry. We can only send raw material of lower value to areas in Java, Bali and some overseas countries," he said.

Lack of transportation facilities including roads and harbors, as well as processing plants are the main obstacles presently faced by Toli-Toli in developing its natural resources.

"I really hope that through the expo, we can attract more investors to our regency so that we can also improve the welfare of our people," he said.