Ahmad Pathoni, Jakarta – Officials say Indonesia's new national capital, to be built on Borneo island far from often-flooded and traffic-choked Jakarta, will lead to greater equality.
But residents in the area where the future city will be built fear they will have to give up their traditional farmlands and lose their livelihoods.
"Our concern is that we will lose that land that we cultivated for generations. They never talked to us," said Sibukdin, a chieftain in Sepaku, a sub-district in East Kalimantan province at the heart of what will be the country's new capital.
"It's like we are being killed slowly. Our ancestors' forest has already been destroyed to make way for timber businesses," he said, referring to massive deforestation under long-time ruler Suharto.
Sibukdin said locals no longer own the plots of land they work on because the government had awarded licences to politically-connected business tycoons with interests in mining, palm oil and timber.
The Indonesian parliament recently passed a bill on the new national capital, paving the way for the initial phase of construction on 6,000 hectares of forest land.
A total of 256,000 hectares have been allocated for the new city, to be called "Nusantara," an old name for the Indonesian archipelago.
In 2019, President Joko Widodo announced plans to build a whole new capital in the jungles of Borneo, halfway between the cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda.
He said that Jakarta was no longer viable as the country's administrative hub because of frequent flooding, perennial traffic jams and poor air quality.
The cost of the move to the capital is estimated at more than 32 billion dollars.
If things go according to plan, the first officials are scheduled to move into their new offices as early as 2024 – the last year of Joko's second and final term in office.
This month, renowned Balinese artist I Nyoman Nuarta revealed his design of the new presidential palace to be built in the new city, in an Instagram post.
The government said the future city will be environmentally sustainable and feature state-of-the-art technologies. Only electric cars will be allowed on its brand-new roads, they said.
"The new capital will result in more equitable development," said Rawanda Wandy Tuturoong, an expert at the Office of the Presidential Staff.
"All this time development has been concentrated on Java island," of which Jakarta is part, he added. "Moving the centre of economic growth will address this problem."
Java is home to about 158 million people, or nearly 60 per cent of Indonesia's population, making it the most densely-populated island in the world.
Jakarta is struggling to cope with its status as an administrative and commercial centre.
No other city in the world is sinking faster than Jakarta. Already, 20 per cent of its territory is below sea level and that figure is set to nearly double by 2050, according to researchers at the Bandung Institute of Technology.
Mass extraction of groundwater is partly to blame.
About 630 million cubic meters of water are pumped from the ground each year by high-rise by commercial establishments including hotels, shopping centres and apartment complexes as well as residents, according to the city government.
Meanwhile, the risks of disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are minimal in the future capital, the government has said.
Rawanda said the government had consulted representatives of local people and their concerns were being addressed.
"We want the new city to benefit local people, so they can be the masters of their own homes," he said.
"That's why we will build educational and vocational centres so that they can be, for example, executives and leaders of major companies that will invest here," he said.
However, activists criticized the lack of public consultations.
"The government should have conducted a referendum on the plan," said Pradarma Rupang, a campaigner for the environmental group Mining Action Network (Jatam) in East Kalimantan.
"They are rushing the project as if our nation would fall apart if we didn't move the capital," he said.
He warned that the project would threaten the environment, not just on the site of the new capital, but elsewhere.
"They will be using materials from Palu on Sulawesi island and initially, electricity will be powered by fossil fuels, especially coal," Rupang said.
"This will lead to the opening of massive mines," he said.
Hendry Satrio, a political analyst at Paramadina University in Jakarta, said personal ambition drove Joko to move the capital.
"Jokowi wants to make history as the president who moved the capital," he said, using the president's popular nickname. "He's hoping it will be his lasting legacy."
"Many cities in Indonesia need to be developed, and during the current economic crisis because of the Covid-19 pandemic, developing a new city should be the last of our priorities," he said.