By UCA News reporter
A new documentary released on World Rainforest Day has portrayed the adverse impact on one of Asia’s largest stretches of rain forests and its indigenous communities due to Indonesia’s still-under-construction capital city, Nusantara.
‘A River Out of Time,’ available in English and Bahasa Indonesia languages, explores concepts of so-called “green economy” in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Jun 22.
Nusantara refers to the archipelago and is also the name of Indonesia’s new capital city, currently under construction in East Kalimantan. The city is designed to be a sustainable and carbon-neutral metropolis and is slated to be completed by 2045.
Dams in North Kalimantan, specifically the Kayan Cascade project, are planned to provide the primary source of electricity for Nusantara, aiming to establish it as a “green” city.
North Kalimantan, created as a province in 2012, is among the five Indonesian provinces on Borneo island. Divided between Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia, Borneo is the world’s third-largest island, after Greenland and New Guinea.
The 32-minute documentary is produced by BenarNews, an affiliate news service of RFA. It was released on World Rainforest Day, June 22, and shows how the network of dams Indonesia plans in Borneo to power a major “green” industrial estate will relocate indigenous communities and reduce the rain forests cover.
“The sense of uncertainty shared by Kayan River communities depicted in the film mirrors that of countless others around the world in today’s era of climate change,” BenarNews Managing Editor Kate Beddall told RFA.
“’A River Out of Time’ allows us to reflect on what we lose as we alter the natural world and our own place in it,” she added.
The construction of five dams along three rivers in North Kalimantan province as part of Southeast Asia’s largest hydropower project is already in progress and is scheduled for completion in 2035, costing more than US$20 billion with a generation capacity of 9,000 megawatts.
The film speaks with people living along the river, environmental activists, and project developers to bring attention to communities being displaced.
The communities affected are in the villages of Long Berang, Long Simau, Long Sulit, Semamu Lama, Semamu Baru and Temalang in Mentarang Tubu subdistrict.
Kuala Rian and Rian Tubu villages in Sungai Tubu subdistrict are also subject to relocation orders, reported Mongabay, an independent, nonprofit media organization.
“Every film I have worked on aims to paint a complete picture of a unique, personal experience. ‘A River Out of Time’ does the same,” said director Roger M. Richards.
The filmmaker is best known for Sarajevo Roses, a 2016 feature documentary covering 24 years of conflict in Bosnia, focused on the capital city of Sarajevo during the siege and its aftermath.
“As our team traveled along the Kayan, we built an interactive, multimedia travelogue of our journey: an elegy for a once-wild, doomed river,” Richards said, detailing his experience during the filming.
Indonesian government floated the plan to shift the national capital to Nusantara from Jakarta years ago amid concerns over overpopulation and land sinking fueled by climate change-infused gradual sea-level rise.
The plan was postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic and resumed in 2022, according to media reports. The project is estimated to cost about US$35 billion.
Nusantara is expected to be fully operational by 2045, the centenary of Indonesia’s independence from Dutch colonial rule. – UCA News
