The fruit of our sins

Thursday's call by a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the public to join them in taking action against those parties they deem responsible for the environmental disaster that befell thousands of residents -- especially those living along the toll road connecting Jakarta with the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport earlier this week -- comes as no surprise.

In fact, given the NGOs' early opposition to the Pantai Indah Kapuk luxury housing development scheme on Jakarta's north coast, which they hold responsible for the annually recurring floods in the area, many people here are asking themselves what has taken the NGOs so long to implement this long-awaited initiative.

After all, every year when the rainy season is about to begin, Jakarta's residents brace themselves for the recurring floods that seem to be getting worse and worse as the years go by. Now, even a few hours of moderate monsoon showers cause parts of roads to be inundated, which often causes traffic jams several kilometers long. This is particularly true for the lower lying areas along the north coast, of which the Pantai Kapuk area adjoining the Soekarno-Hatta Airport is one.

Although accounts given by the officials of what actually happened vary -- none of which, incidentally, puts the blame on the administration -- it seems that Tuesday's disaster was aggravated by residents, who were threatened with heavy flooding of their area, breaching the dike that was built to protect the toll road from being inundated by water flowing in from the south. To make matters worse, the road itself is prone to sinking some seven centimeters a year due to soil conditions.

Before the Pantai Indah Kapuk housing development project was started about a decade ago, environmentalists had warned that any damage to the coastal wetland environment in the area was bound to have dire consequences in the future. Business and money considerations, it seems, prevailed. Whole stretches of mangrove stands, and a nature reserve as well, were cleared for construction and marshland was reclaimed.

To critics expressing concern about the destruction of the environment, the developer of the project retorted that he would take full responsibility for his actions. "If it should be proved in the future that those concerns are justified, I shall be willing to face trial to take responsibility for my actions," he said, as quoted by the newspaper Kompas.

After this week's disaster -- which was, by the way, not the first to have occurred -- it seems that the time to take responsibility has arrived. Compensation in cash could possibly cover some of the damage inflicted on the population living in the area. What is more difficult to see is how the 813.63 hectares of coastal wetland and mangrove stands can be restored in time to prevent similar disasters in the foreseeable future.

And of course, too, the developer in question is not the only person who should be held responsible. Every official in the Jakarta administration who at the time granted permission for the project to go ahead shares that responsibility.

Sadly, what is happening now in the Pantai Kapuk Indah area in North Jakarta is merely one of many similar cases that are playing out almost everywhere in this country at present, and perhaps on a much larger scale. The unprecedented floods in North Sumatra this week that left at least 13 people dead, for example, would not have happened had Indonesians -- both inside and outside the government -- had a better appreciation and a better understanding of the irreplaceable worth of the natural environment to our lives.

All this has been said before -- not once, but many times. But given the consequences ignorance will most certainly bring for future generations of Indonesians, we consider it worthwhile saying it once again -- and again, until the message gets through.