REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The project to reclaim 17 islands along North Jakarta Coast will threaten the environment of Jakarta Bay and its surrounding areas, according to Alan Koropitan, oceanographist of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB).

"The environmental condition in the area is bad. The solution is not reclamation. In fact, reclamation will worsen it," Koropitan stated at a discussion on the reclamation project, here, recently.

The reclamation of Jakarta Bay will trigger flooding, reduce the water quality, and hinder the water circulation process.

"Fish will die due to the presence of heavy metals and organic substances. There will be a decline in the flow of water, which will result in increased sedimentation in it (the bay)," he pointed out.

Koropitan stated that no reclamation should be carried out in Jakarta Bay, but it should instead be restored in accordance with Law No. 27 of 2007 on Coastal and Small Island Management.

In the meantime, the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) stated that the arrest of a Jakarta lawmaker over alleged bribery in the Jakarta Bay reclamation project should serve as a momentum to totally halt it.

"Reclamation is not in the interest of the Jakarta public but would benefit a group of elites and capitalists at the expense of nature and will affect the traditional fishermen," Walhi Jakarta Executive Director Puput T.D. Putra noted in a statement recently.

He regretted the fact that Jakarta's lawmakers gave their nod to the administration to carry out the reclamation project.

Walhi believes that the reclamation project will prove to be detrimental to Jakarta's environment.

According to the environmental NGO, the reclamation project would further worsen land subsidence in Jakarta.

The Bandung Institute of Technology, in its study conducted in 2015, found that Jakarta, particularly the northern part, had subsided by between two and four centimeters, he added.

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