Tangguh resettlement: Moving not only body but spirit
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Bintuni Bay, Papua
Lince has finished decorating her new house. Crimson curtains drape the doorway leading to the bedrooms from the living room. A tablecloth of similar color covers the television in front of the sofa. Religious posters, ornamental ceramic plates and plastic flowers are hung on the walls.
"Our lives are much easier now," Lince, who is originally from Maluku but who followed her husband to Papua, told The Jakarta Post recently. "We now have clean water and a toilet."
Basic facilities were a luxury when the family of 10 lived in Tanah Merah (red earth) village in Bintuni Bay in the province. But since June last year, such conveniences have become part and parcel of the lives of the 127 families who moved from the village to new dwellings in Tanah Merah Baru (New Tanah Merah) and Onar.
Tanah Merah was selected as the best site in the bay area to build Tangguh -- the country's third liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, which will process some 14.4 trillion cubic feet of gas discovered in several nearby fields.
Indonesia is pinning its hopes on the plant, constructed by a BP-led consortium, to make up for the dwindling production of fields in Bontang in East Kalimantan and Arun in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.
"The ground goes uphill and is of good quality," said Tangguh project's executive vice president David Clarkson about Tanah Merah. "The area isn't susceptible to floods and swamping."
BP and its partners started consultation with the villagers almost six years ago to persuade them to move by offering better living conditions. A World Bank guideline on resettlement was used as a reference to ensure satisfying results for all stakeholders.
The villagers opted for two locations -- 101 families chose to live in the area now known as Tanah Merah Baru near their former village, while the rest picked Onar further down the bay.
A team of architects from the province's University of Cendrawasih designed the houses.
"We built a model house so that villagers could give us their opinions," said Tangguh project's field manager Gerry Owens. Changes to the design were made -- mothers requested a bigger kitchen, for instance -- and in the final drawing, a three- bedroom house was approved.
Each house on stilts is divided into two areas, which are the front, made of timber with bedrooms, a living room and a terrace, and the back, built from brick and comprising a toilet, a bathroom and a spacious kitchen, connected by a three-meter-long bridge.
Tanah Merah Baru, looking like a row of doll houses standing neat and immaculate on a curving line from above, has two churches, a mosque, an elementary school and a junior high school, complete with a boarding house to accommodate students from other areas. Water tanks are located on the outskirts of the village to ensure supply.
As many people in the province used to embrace animism before converting to conventional religions, the project moved not only the people, but also the village's sacred sites. This phase alone took two years of consultation, which at times included villagers performing rituals to converse with the spirits.
"They (the villagers) are going to be our neighbors for the next 40 years," Owens said. "We want them to be happy with their new villages."
As Tanah Merah Baru and Onar are completed, the Tangguh team is now "renovating" -- more like rebuilding -- another village near the project site called Saengga, one of the areas deemed to be directly affected by the LNG plant.
In Saengga, more than 90 new houses similar to those in Tanah Merah Baru will be built. When the renovation is completed, some US$30 million will have been spent on the three villages.
As the villagers settle in -- either by returning to the sea to fish or taking up new jobs at the Tangguh plant -- they are getting used to the comforts of their new lives.