Trans-Papua
Highway :
Economic
development versus conservation
Freddy Pattiselanno and
Agustina Y.S. Arobaya ; The writers are lecturers
at the Animal Science Department and Forestry
Department
of the State University of Papua (UNIPA),
Manokwari
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JAKARTA POST, 21 Mei 2015
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In his
four-day trip to Papua and West Papua, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo
promised to complete the construction of the Trans-Papua highway, which has
been postponed due to various reasons since its start in 2013. He compared
the differences among the western, middle and eastern parts of Indonesia and
said that when the infrastructure was built, commodity prices in Sumatra,
Java, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua would be more equal. “The gap will no longer
be as big as we see right now,” he said.
The aims
of road construction have been widely discussed. Economists have written
extensively about the link between roads and market access and economic
growth, as well as the health of households and national economies in most
developing nations. Most economists love roads — seeing them as a
cost-effective way to promote economic growth, encourage regional trade and
provide access to natural resources and land suitable for agriculture.
Focusing
on food is vital because with continuing rapid population growth and changing
human diets, global food demand is expected to double by 2050. Roads affect
food, especially in Papua where new regencies are being developed and are
populated by small-scale farmers who produce much less food than they could
if they had new or better roads. Such roads could give them ready access to
fertilizers, modern farming methods and urban markets to sell their crops.
External
investments in agriculture have been the main driver of the economy in both
Papua and West Papua provinces. The agricultural sector is the main source of
employment, providing jobs for the locals.
However,
roads pose a particularly challenging problem, because a poorly planned road
can be devastating. Roads cutting through delicate ecosystems have been
linked to deforestation, pollution, invasions of exotic species and
wildfires. For wildlife, a road can create a barrier that may be deadly to
cross, keeping animals away from food and potential mates, or it can provide
easier access to illegal hunting that threatens endangered species.
How do
we learn from the road development program in other parts of Indonesia?
The
extension of the 2,508.5-kilometer road network in Sumatra has increased
human-wildlife conflicts that have led to an increase in the number of human
victims, at the same time reducing the population of the endangered Sumatran
tiger and other wildlife species.
In
Kalimantan, the development of Malinau at the edge of the Kayan Mentarang
National Park has also destroyed large areas of wildlife habitat, and
threatened nomadic and large vertebrates, such as Malayan sun bear, the
bearded pig and the orangutan.
In the
island of Sulawesi, improvements to the highway connection between North
Sulawesi and other provinces of Sulawesi, such as Gorontalo and Central
Sulawesi, have also led to an increase in the importation of wild meat from
other forest landscapes of Sulawesi for wildlife market demand in Manado and
Minahasa. Consequently, the pressure of hunting on wildlife populations, such
as the babirusa, anoa, flying foxes and other mammal species, has escalated
over time.
Our
survey along the coast of the Bird’s Head Peninsula found that the 571-km
stretch of the Trans-West Papua Highway along the coast has split pristine
forests and increased the trading of wildlife from remote villages into the
nearest market towns. However, despite the tremendous expectations and vast
investment in the road development, communities in the region still live
below the poverty line. Road improvement is expected to help farmers in
transporting their agriculture produce to urban markets. Regrettably, they
have to struggle with the upsurge in transportation costs of getting the mass
products to the markets.
To
further complicate the issue, the impacts from deforestation and poorly
planned coastal development such as landscape changes because of road
expansion, mining, logging and commercial plantations have increased
flooding, erosion and the run-off of topsoil to coastlines and created beach
modifications that threaten marine environments including the Abun Regional
Marine Protected Area. We believe that some land conversions are needed and
unavoidable. Land conversion, including road development, is vital to make
room for economic activities. There is no doubt that road access will have
significant effects on efforts to fight rural poverty. But it must be
followed by other strategic plans related to affordable transportation.
We need
to sensitize political decision-makers, economists, infrastructure planners
and the general public about the myriad environmental costs of road
expansion, especially into intact forests.
Improved
environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for planned roads must be conducted.
In many developing nations, EIAs focus solely on the roads themselves,
completely ignoring the knock-on effects. Otherwise, new roads will continue
to drive rainforest destruction so long as the EIA process is so
fundamentally flawed.
It is
also urgent that local government agencies improve their overall coordination
for development planning. For example, institutions like the Public Works
Agency, Regional Environmental Board, Conservation of Natural Resources
Bureau and Forestry Agency need to sit together in order to plan further for
road expansion. Furthermore, relevant regulations need to be implemented and
strengthened law enforcement is needed to encourage better extraction
industry practices, such as in logging and mining.
Finally,
Bill Laurance, a conservation biologist at James Cook University in Cairns,
Australia, leading a group of researchers or “Road Warriors” from Harvard,
Cambridge, Melbourne, Minnesota, Sheffield and James Cook universities and
the Conservation Strategy Fund published A Global strategy for road building,
which lists regions that should stay road-free, those where roads would be
most useful and those where there is likely to be conflict between the
competing interests of human development and protecting nature.
This
should be considered as a guide for future road development. ●
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