Seven islands sink, eight likely to follow

JAKARTA (JP): Seven islands in the Pulau Seribu marine resort area, popularly known as Thousand Islands chain, off the North Jakarta shore have perished and eight more will follow shortly if the city administration fails to take necessary preventive measures, city councilors said.

The problems were identified during the councilors' visit to the islands on Thursday and Friday.

Head of the Pulau Seribu district, Waluyono, said the seven missing islands and the eight troubled islands were among 82 islands determined as a national sea park according to a 1982 decree by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Waluyono said the perished islands were Ubi Besar, Nirwana, Air Kecil, Air Besar, Nyamuk, Vander Smith and Dapur, while the eight islands in trouble were Bidadari, Nyamuk Besar, Cipir, Pantara, Damar Kecil, Onrust, Kelor and Gosong Besar.

"The seven islands were ruined by sea water abrasion and illegal sand mining.

"The same thing is now happening to eight other islands," he said.

The findings were slightly different from those revealed two years ago by the central government.

In September 1997, Hamar Martono from the ministry of environment, said six islets vanished mainly due to massive sand mining. They included Pulau Ubi, Pulau Damar, Pulau Nirwana, Pulau Dapur and Pulau Laki.

"Islands cannot be made. Once destroyed, they are gone and you never get them back," Hamar said at the time.

According to Waluyono, his men could not monitor the illegal sand mining in Pulau Seribu because the district did not have enough boats to patrol the area.

Head of Commission D for development affairs, Ali Wongso Sinaga, called for an end to the illegal sand mining, allegedly carried out by businessmen who privately owned islands in the area.

"It must be stopped if we don't want to see these eight islands and some others sink," Ali said on Friday.

He said the sand, which has been used to develop the private islands and tourism resorts on nearby islands was taken from the perished islands.

He suspected that a reclamation project for a huge housing complex in North Jakarta also took sand from Pulau Seribu.

"Where did they get the sand for the Pantai Mutiara reclamation project and several housing complexes in North Jakarta?" he asked.

He called on the city administration and security authority to improve the monitoring mechanism to prevent more islands from sinking.

A researcher from the National Institute of Sciences oceanography research and development center said earlier that a number of islands have sunk due to sand mining for the construction of Prof. Dr. Sediatmo toll road and the Soekarno- Hatta airport toll road in Jakarta.

Pulau Seribu, an area of 69,976 square kilometers (9,214 square kms of which is land), consists of 106 islands grouped into four subdistricts: Panggang, Kelapa, Tidung and Untung Jawa.

Only 11 of the 106 islands are used for settlements for at least 17,761 people or 4,821 families, while the rest were empty or being developed as tourism resorts.

At least 28 of the 106 islands are privately owned, while 34 others are owned by private companies. (jun/bsr)