With relocation looming, a community in the Riau Islands is fighting to protect its ancestral villages and coastal environment from harm
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A partially demolished house in one of the Kampung Tua (old villages) of Rempang Island, previously owned by a household that agreed to relocate to make way for the Rempang Eco City megaproject (Image: Bagus Pradana / Transparansi Internasional Indonesia)
Rempang Eco City, a large-scale development project in Indonesia’s western Riau Islands, has been touted by the provincial government as a “new economic engine for Indonesia”. It will comprise industrial, residential, tourism and wildlife reserve zones, all with an intended focus on environmental sustainability, and aims to create 35,000 jobs.
For the thousands of residents of Rempang Island, the site of the project, this ambitious undertaking is a source of worry. It will involve the clearance of the island’s existing settlements, including traditional villages that have been inhabited mostly by families of several Indigenous seafaring groups for generations. They fear this will come with the loss of their heritage and established livelihoods.
The Indonesian government announced Rempang Eco City in August 2023 and required the 7,500 people living in the island’s 16 Kampung Tua (old villages) to leave their homes by the end of the next month.
Many of them, refusing to be displaced, clashed with Indonesian authorities when they arrived to conduct land surveys for the project.
Following criticism of the police response during these clashes, the government removed the eviction deadline. Authorities eventually launched a “local transmigration” programme to move residents to new estates in Tanjung Banon, in the southern part of Rempang Island, instead of forcing the villagers out of the island entirely.
The government’s basis for the relocations has been that since the villagers do not have official land ownership certificates, they are not legal owners of the land, despite some families having lived there since the 19th century. Critics like Rina Mardiana, a socio-agrarian expert at IPB University, have called the term “local transmigration” a euphemism for “forced displacement that eliminates the rights of Indigenous peoples”.
They call it an eco-city, but the first thing they do is take the land our ancestors left us, taking away the space where our children should grow and thrive
- Ishaka, resident of Pasir Panjang and coordinator of the Rempang Galang United Community Alliance
As of June, 106 of 961 affected households have reportedly been moved. But local opposition has remained strong. In mid-August, villagers intensified their resistance, including staging protests against the transmigration programme.
“They call it an eco-city, but the first thing they do is take the land our ancestors left us, taking away the space where our children should grow and thrive,” said Ishaka. He is a resident of Pasir Panjang, one of the impacted villages, and coordinator of Rempang Galang United Community Alliance (AMAR-GB), a coalition set up by villagers to oppose the relocation.
A shaky start
During a visit to China in July 2023, Indonesia’s then minister of investment, Bahlil Lahadia, announced that the country secured a USD 11.5 billion commitment from China’s Xinyi Group for a solar panel manufacturing facility to be built on Rempang Island. He claimed it would have been the second largest such facility in the world.
But in February this year, Xinyi denied involvement in Rempang Eco City. In a statement to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, it said that it “has not initiated any eco-city project and has not reached any agreements or contracts”. The company also stated that the relevant authorities “only preliminarily introduced development project prices and conditions to our company”.
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A Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority signboard in front of a relocation site listing the “benefits of relocation for Rempang residents” (Image: Bagus Pradana / Transparansi Internasional Indonesia)
The next month, the project suffered a further setback after revelations that it was excluded from Indonesia’s National Strategic Project (PSN) list, raising questions about its priority and viability.
But officials from the Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority, the government agency overseeing the project, publicly maintain their commitment. The agency’s head and mayor of the province’s largest city Batam, Amsakar Achmad, stated in March that the exclusion from the PSN list “does not mean that the project is no longer valid or has been cancelled”.
Relocation efforts were ongoing as recently as July. Residents of Tanjung Banon were evicted, and their plantations razed to make way for further construction of houses for the local transmigration programme.
On the ground
While the government sees economic opportunity, residents see the project as a threat to their existence.
“The people of Rempang have a strong emotional and spiritual bond with their homeland,” said Suraya A. Afiff, a political ecologist at Universitas Indonesia. She notes that for groups such as the Malay Rempang people Indigenous to the island, for example, “forcing them to leave [their villages] means erasing their existence”.
The loss of their 16 traditional villages means residents, whose families have lived there for generations, will lose crucial aspects of their lives. This includes ancestral lands that hold significant spiritual and cultural value, and ancestral burial grounds.
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Rempang Island residents ride in a pickup truck while holding signs in protest against the relocation. One sign reads: “Don’t rob our children of their future” (Image: Bagus Pradana / Transparansi Internasional Indonesia)
The loss of the island’s farms and plantations could also have detrimental impacts on surrounding areas. Its agricultural sector is an important contributor to the region’s food and economic security. Agriculture in Rempang Island can meet approximately 40-50% of market demand in Batam and the surrounding islands, Gunawan Satary, chairperson of the Indonesian Farmers’ Association of Batam City, told The IDN Times. The association highlighted that the island’s farmers play a crucial role in supporting food security locally and helping the regional government of Batam control inflation.
Rempang Island is also a haven for marine life and biodiversity. Researchers from Universitas Riau Kepulauan discovered the presence of three species of starfish and five species of sea cucumbers on two of the island’s beaches. Both animals are prized for their ecological importance in maintaining the health of the local marine ecosystem.
The island’s mangroves are equally critical. Spanning more than 2,800 hectares, they provide IDR 75 billion (USD 4.5 million) in value annually, according to a Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji study. Most of this comes from their provision of coastal protection through breakwaters and prevention of seawater intrusion, as well as ecological services such as being a nursery and acting as feeding and spawning ground for marine life.
Any damage to these ecosystems would hit communities directly. In September, Susan Herawati, secretary general of the People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), presented unpublished research showing that potential environmental losses as a result of the Rempang Eco City project being forced through will be IDR 1.3 billion (USD 78,000) per household per year for residents remaining on the island, a figure that’s three times greater than their income.
In Tanjung Banon, since the construction of the relocation estate began, local residents have reportedly been complaining about the damage to mangroves and the death of fish in cages from mud generated by the construction, according to the publication RiauPos.
Miswadi, a villager from Sembulang Hulu on Rempang Island and a spokesperson for AMAR-GB, defined an “eco city” as a place where people and nature coexist symbiotically. “But what we’re seeing and hearing is the opposite. How can this be called an eco-city when it begins by erasing the community that has lived in balance with this environment for generations?”
Many residents continue to stay put in their villages with a simple demand. They are calling for the government to recognise the legality of these settlements that they have lived in for generations, and seek a continued peaceful existence and preservation of their culture.
“Do not just build an ‘eco city’,” pleads Ishaka. “Build a future where our children can still fish in these waters, farm this land, and call [the Kampung Tua of] Rempang their home. If that future is lost, no amount of investment can bring it back.”
Author: Mohammad Yunus
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.
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