No Islands are for Sale

" Three Indonesian islands will be sold to foreigners " that's what the Indonesian media reported recently.

The report said that a Canadian based website www.privateislandonline.com has advertised the sale of islands located on the west of Sumatra island, i.e. Macaroni island, 15-acre, US$4 million; Siloinak island, 24-acre, $1.6 million; and Kandui island, 26-acres, US$8 million.

I was very shock to hear the news because the Indonesian Agrarian Law forbid the sale of land to Foreigners. So I checked the above website and found two things: First it clearly stated that foreigners are not possible to purchase island in Indonesia, they can only Rent, or alternatively they can buy partial shares of a company that manage the island. Secondly, there is only one island offered i.e. Siloinak Island; whilst the other two are not islands, i.e. Macaroni is name of a resort at the North Pangai Island, and Kandui is the name of resort at Karangmajat Besar Island.

Further, the Secretary of State Hatta Radjasa has denied the news, and so has an official of the Mentawai Regency which goverened the islands.

For details on the above, please click here, and here.

I am very glad that the media report regarding the sales of islands has not been true, therefore no laws have been violated.

Photo: Courtesy of Detik

Losing Islands

On 17 December 2002, the International Court of Justice has decided that Indonesia must release its sovereignty over the islands of Simpadan and Ligitan, to Malaysia.

Soon afterward, Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda was quoted by website of the Defence Department as saying that our government accepted said Court's decision. He added the reason we loose those islands because our country’s territorial borders are unclear.
Many protests were raised against said Court’s decision and our government’s failure to keep those islands. But the government at that time refused to be blamed because Court case was initiated in 1997 by the previous government.

After loosing those islands, according to Tempointeraktif, Indonesia still have 17,506 other islands, many of which are inhabited and have been given names, many others are still uninhabited and nameless.

A few days ago, the news media reported about the sinking of two islands i.e. Bangkai Island (10 Hectare) & Satu Island (2 Hectare), which are part of the Islands of Enggano in Bengkulu Province, Sumatera.
As the cause of sinking was abrasion of the land by high rising sea water. Actually, the abrasion can be minimized by planting Mangrove and trees that would serve as reservoir of rain water in the earth, and forbidding the use of Tiger Fishing Net and Bombs for catching fish.
If the condition does not improve, it is predicted that two nearby islands, i.e Dua Island (11 Hectare) and Marbau Island (7 Hectare) may sink in the next five years.

Considering the above mentioned facts, I hope that more serious efforts would be made to retrieve the sinking islands and to stop sea water abrasion of the other islands so that we would not be losing anymore island.