Sadly this is the post similar to the hair that broke the camels back so to speak. I have always lived by the ethos that in all public domains that I would retain a complexion of calm and professionalism, irrespective of my sentiments at the time. I mean in all fairness it is that professionalism that defines us as the individuals we are. But sadly I now have to break that self imposed ethical boundary given the news I recently became aware of, it is something that I simply cannot, in any way shape or form, begin to comprehend.

As a global community we've just emerged from what had turned out to be the farce identified as COP or Conference of the Parties. In diplomatic terms, “the parties” refers to the total of 197 nations who each agreed to a new environmental pact, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at a meeting in 1992. And quite frankly it's been a shower of shit since it's inception. To all extents and purposes it seems to be nothing more than a veil behind which wheeling and dealing continues, to the detriment of the planet and of course to the species, other that the human one, with which we share our one and only viable planetary home.

My day started out as normal. Wash the eye boogers away with a scoop of cold water. Shake the sleep from my bones as I woke the household up, like the morning ritual of the scribbled pipefish my partner and I would embrace and welcome each other into the new day, an embrace, a peck on the cheek. From there the task of extricating our young son Joshua from his pit. With the shadow of school on that dark and dreary day to look forward to I can kind of understand his reluctance to leave the coziness afforded by his quilt cover. Reverting to tickles always does the trick. Breakfast, teeth brushing and dropping off to school all blurred by, groundhog day. Settling in to my swivel chair in front of my small office desk I made the rounds of the news and social media. My jaw hit the floor....

Jakarta, a city of 10million inhabitants is prone to flooding as it sinks into the ground, some regions by as much as 20cm per year.

Just this past Tuesday, January 18th, 2022, the Indonesian powers that be created the legal framework that would pave the way for the beleaguered city to relocate some 2000km to a site currently occupied by jungles and wildlife in an Indonesian owned segment of the island of Borneo known as West Kalimantan. I couldn't fucking believe what I was reading. While the metropolis is currently located on the worlds most densely populated island how is it that a decision could be made, especially after the recent COP26 conference, that signals the death knell for so much wildlife and the destruction of so much forested lands? OK so Jakarta has it's problems. It's a known fact that the current city of Jakarta is in bad shape. Parts of it are sinking at an alarming rate, in some places by up to 20cm per year.

Who in their right mind could find it logical to locate a capital city in the site currently occupied by Jakarta in the first place? It sits on marsh land, thirteen rivers run through it emptying into the Java Sea and more incredulously some 12% of its original land mass was already situated below sea level before flooding became an issue. In the modern day and with the current rate at which the ground is swallowing the city it's estimated that by 2050 some 95% of the Northern Jakarta region will be submerged. In the past 10yrs that region has sunk an incredible 2.5m as it is. Numerous buildings, once businesses now lay abandoned with ground floors filled with stagnant flood waters. With each rainy season comes gridlock due to flooded city streets. So the solution? Move lock stock and barrel the administrative hub of the city to a an area of pristine beauty currently occupied by wildlife and jungle vegetation. An area covering 56,180 hectares or 216 sq/miles have been set aside for the initial move with an additional 256,142 hectares designated for future expansion projects. One fucking question Indonesia, Why?

Even though Indonesia does own a segment of the the island of Borneo, as does Brunei, the majority of it belongs to Malaysia. It is a land that once boasted an incredible diversity of species. Its mountainous peaks and plunging valleys once covered with dense and healthy rainforests. Sadly and as a whole the island of Borneo underwent an orgy of deforestation, due to logging, on an industrial scale in the 70's and 80's that has, thankfully, never since been eclipsed, but it is continuing. The avarice of man becoming all too evident once again.

Forest cover in West Kalimantan serves as the fast shrinking home of the Bornean Orang Utan (Pongo pygmaeus). Once the city, including the 30million inhabitants currently residing in the greater Jakarta area move in, what will become of this great ape's home?

Could no tract of land on Java be set aside for the new city location? Java, in a natural sense, to an extent is already screwed so why not contain the issue there? It serves as home to just over 50% to Indonesias currently estimated 270 million populace. So much of the forests of West Kalimantan have been cleared to date for industrial purposes namely mining and the establishing of Palm Oil Plantations. The latter an industry steeped in controversies over the years ranging from the killing of indigenous land owners to sexual exploitation of plantation workers not to mention the illegal deforestation and subsequent impact on numerous wildlife species many of which are categorized as endangered or highly endangered. Where is the sense in suggesting it viable to moving a capital city into such an environment.

Jakarta, as it stands is one of the worlds most polluted cities. Data from the Jakarta Health Agency also shows that in 2019, before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, the city only enjoyed two days when the air quality was deemed to be at healthy levels. This stems from the emissions of numerous nearby coal-fired power plants, public transportation, manufacturing, household emissions, construction and road dust as well as the open and public incineration of the cities mountains of waste. Taking all of this into consideration it thus beggars belief that the current administration is touting the new site as a place: "where the people are close to any destination, where they can bike and walk everywhere because there are zero emissions." Zero emissions my arse. What is going to miraculously stop ten million, plus all those individuals the metropolis will attract, what will stop them from polluting the air, littering the public drainage systems and destroying the fabric of this natural wonderland over night? I hang my head in shame at what we're doing to the wildlife and natural spaces of this planet.

"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands".

Havelock Ellis