Government to Restore River Basins

By Barrie | January 22nd, 2008 | No Comments

The government has announced plans to restore dozens of river basins this year in efforts to prevent flood-related disasters which were said to occur more frequently in Indonesia due to the vast land changes in watershed areas.The Forestry Ministry said Tuesday it would prioritize the reforestation of upstream areas of 60 watersheds, mostly outside Java.

“In fact there are 232 river basins which are in a critical condition at present, but our budget can only cover 60 of them,” Forestry Ministry director general of land rehabilitation and social forestry Soenaryo said at a press conference.

Among the top priorities on the list was the Citarum and Ciliwung rivers in West Java, the Asahan river in North Sumatra, the Indragiri river in Riau and Bengawan Solo in Central Java.
The Citarum is the largest river in Java, occupying some 6,080 square kilometers of land and stretching some 269 kilometers to the sea. It is a key water source for both West Java and Jakarta.

Soenaryo said the government had allocated only Rp 325 billion of state budget funds to rehabilitate river basins this year across Indonesia.

“The amount is far lower than our proposal of Rp 8 trillion to restore at least 1.7 million hectares of degraded forest land along the watersheds,” he added.

He said The Forestry Ministry would spend at least Rp 5 million to replant trees in watershed areas.

He said the office would examine land use violations affecting river basins.
Bogor Institute of Agriculture expert Naek Sinukaban, speaking at the same conference, criticized the government for paying too little attention to the condition of watersheds.

“While numerous water-related disasters have plagued the nation, the government has yet to make it a priority to protect forest areas along river basins,” he said.

“The government must take action. It needs to provide incentives for communities to protecting forests along riverbanks.”

Naek said the recent floods that hit East Jakarta were not because of heavy rainfall but due to land degradation in the surrounding river basin.

“The same thing happened to the Bengawan Solo where rainfalls in from deforested areas went directly into the river and caused floods,” he said.

Two weeks ago the Bengawan Solo, Java’s longest river, burst its banks and flooded large areas displacing tens of thousands of people. Floods and landslides in East and Central Java killed more than 100 others.

Data from the state Environment Ministry shows about 31 percent of forested lands, some 11,023 hectares, along the Bengawan Solo have been cleared for agriculture purposes since 2000.

Another 97,216 ha of its riverbanks had also been converted to residential areas, it said.

The West Java administration said 54 percent of once forested areas along the Citarum river were converted to agricultural lands and housing complexes over the 1983-2002 period.

It said the number of housing complexes there jumped by 233 percent between 1983 and 2002, with industrial land use increasing by 868 percent for the same period.

The government has said approximately 603 districts in East Java, 531 in Central and 430 in West Java provinces were highly vulnerable to floods and landslides.
While some 43 regencies in North Sumatra and 16 in West Sumatra were also prone to similar disasters.

Adianto P. Simamora