JAKARTA — Tri Atmoko is a regular visitor to the mangrove forests of Balikpapan Bay on the east coast of Indonesian Borneo, where he studies proboscis monkeys, an endangered species best known for its comically large nose. He’d last gone there in 2022, he tells Mongabay recently. On his return this past June, areas of mangrove trees that were still intact before had now disappeared. “I found many new developments,” says Tri, a primatologist with Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), a government body. “I observed numerous logistic ports being constructed for [the transportation of] materials like sand and rock. Mangrove areas, which were previously intact, are being cleared to build these ports.” All that construction material is headed a few kilometers inland to the biggest construction site in Indonesia: Nusantara, the new capital city being carved out of the Bornean jungle. The development’s footprint includes 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of mangrove forest, part of a 16,000-hectare (39,500-acre) mangrove belt that runs between Balikpapan Bay and the mouth of the Mahakam River. Nusantara is the signature project of President Joko Widodo, who kicked it off in 2019 with the aim of moving the seat of government from the overcrowded and rapidly sinking Jakarta by the time he leaves office in October 2024. But the project has been beset by ballooning costs (with the total tab now at an estimated $33 billion), repeated delays, and a reluctance by foreign investors to get involved. And as Jokowi, as the president is widely…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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