Environmental issues in Indonesia
[1] Most large palm oil plantations in Indonesia owned by Singaporean rich conglomerates who employ thousands of local native Indonesians.
Issues include large-scale deforestation (much of it illegal) and related wildfires causing heavy smog over parts of western Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; over-exploitation of marine resources; and environmental problems associated with rapid urbanisation and economic development, including air pollution, traffic congestion, garbage management, and reliable water and waste water services.
[citation needed] To some degree, these patterns can be linked to the geographical resources themselves, with abundant shoreline, generally calm seas, and steady winds favouring the use of sailing vessels, and fertile valleys and plains—at least in the Greater Sunda Islands—permitting irrigated rice farming.
[citation needed] Each of these patterns of ecological and economic adaptation experienced tremendous pressures during the 1970s and 1980s, with rising population density, soil erosion, river-bed siltation, and water pollution from agricultural pesticides and off-shore oil drilling.
Effluent from fertiliser plants in Gresik in northern Java polluted ponds and killed milkfish fry and young shrimp.
The pollution of the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Sumatra from oil leakage from the Japanese supertanker Showa Maru in January 1975 was a major environmental disaster for the fragile Sumatran coastline.
Silt deposits covered and killed once-lively coral reefs, creating mangrove thickets and making harbour access increasingly difficult, if not impossible, without massive and expensive dredging operations.
[5] Meanwhile, Indonesia's Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) reported that 96% of rivers in Jakarta have been polluted,[6] making fresh, clean water even more scarce.
[10] With a growing population and higher rate urbanization, domestic wastewater will contribute more to the overall water pollution in the country, even in the rural areas where the use of chemical detergents is increasing rapidly.
The chemical compounds from both industrial and domestic waste can sneak through the soil and when the groundwater is relatively shallow, these contaminants will mix with the clean water.
[11] Unless the government regulates domestic wastewater management and ensures a strong law enforcement for industrial waste, the risk of pollution will remain.
Although national and local governments appeared to be aware of the problem, the need to balance environmental protection with pressing demands of a hungry population and an electorate eager for economic growth did not diminish.
These problems included deforestation, soil erosion, massive forest fires, and even desertification resulting from intensive commercial logging—all these threatened to create environmental disasters.
Although additional deforestation came about as a result of the government-sponsored Transmigration Program (transmigrasi) in uninhabited woodlands, in some cases the effects of this process were mitigated by replacing the original forest cover with plantation trees, such as coffee, rubber, or palm.
Although reforestation laws existed, they were rarely or only selectively enforced, leaving the bare land exposed to heavy rainfall, leaching, and erosion.
The use of fires to clear land for agriculture has contributed to Indonesia being the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States.
[18][19] It is also a major contributor as of the countries that has contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions due to its high rate of deforestation and reliance on coal power.
Made up of more than 17,000 islands and with a long coastline, Indonesia stands particularly vulnerable to the effects of rising sea levels and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and storms.
During the 21st century, an area of forest roughly equivalent to the size of the US state of Michigan (92,000 square miles) has been cut down, mainly in order to expand palm oil plantations.
In the middle of 1997 forest fires burning in Indonesia began to affect neighbouring countries, spreading thick clouds of smoke and haze to Malaysia and Singapore.
[25] This occurred during the dry season in October when forest fires were being illegally set off by Indonesian smallholders residing in the districts of Dumai and Bengkalis, in the Riau province of Sumatra.
