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Context

• Indonesia is moving its capital from Jakarta to Borneo.

Why is Indonesia moving its capital?

• Jakarta is home to about 10 million people and three times that number in the greater metropolitan area.
• It has been described as the world’s most rapidly sinking city, and at the current rate, it is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050.
• The main cause is uncontrolled ground water extraction, but it has been exacerbated by the rising Java Sea due to climate change.
• Its air and groundwater are heavily polluted, it floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that it's estimated congestion costs the economy $4.5 billion a year.
• President Joko Widodo envisions the construction of a new capital as a nostrum for the problems plaguing Jakarta, reducing its population while allowing the country to start fresh with a “sustainable city."

Why are environmentalists concerned?

• Skeptics worry, however, about the environmental impact of building a sprawling 256,000-hectare (990-square-mile) city down in Borneo’s East Kalimantan province, which is home to orangutans, leopards and a wide array of other wildlife.

How are indigenous communities impacted?

• At least five villages with more than 100 Indigenous Balik people are relocating because of the construction, with more villages expected to be uprooted as the building site expands.

Borneo: Geography

• Borneo is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia.
• At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra.
• The island is politically divided among three countries: Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south.
• Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. In the north, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak make up about 26% of the island.

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