Profile: Indonesia embarks on mission to catalogue its islands

COUNTING tropical islands in the world’s largest archipelago sounds like something you would do to help you sleep but the Indonesian Government aims to find out how many it has in order to protect its territory and resources.

The serious intention cannot be doubted with the government recently blowing up foreign vessels in an attempt to crack down on illegal fishing.

Even though ministers have no idea how many islands are actually there, they are determined not to lose any more of them — having lost two to Malaysia in 2002 when a territorial dispute was settled in the latter’s favour by the International Court of Justice. Two other islands were ceded to East Timor when it became independent in the same year.

As competition and tempers heat up over resources in Asian waters, the Indonesian Government is in a rush to register a definite number before the August meeting of the UN.

The desire to register the islands has been fuelled by President Joko Widodo who, on election in 2014, pledged to make the country’s maritime economy more profitable as well as strengthen sovereignty against Chinese acquisitiveness.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

ONE benefit for islanders may be that UN registration could offer some protection against profiteering private companies, according to Susan Herawati of the Coalition of People for Justice for Fisheries.

Herawati is angry because 109 families were recently “kicked out” of their homes on an island near Lombok, a popular tourist area, to make way for a private resort. She said they were forced to quit without any compensation. “Sixty per cent of islands in Indonesia don’t have a name or officially have legal status, so they can easily be taken or claimed by another country,” she said. “This is about our identity as a nation. By clearly listing our islands, then our fishermen have legal protection and rights over the islands and our ancestral seas.”

The boundaries of the Indonesian archipelago were first set during the years of colonial expansion by the Dutch and as the area stretches 5000km from the South Pacific to the Indian Ocean, counting the islands is a mammoth task.

A 1996 law put the number at 17,508 but that was just an estimate and wasn’t verified under UN criteria. The UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea defines islands as naturally formed areas of land completely surrounded by water that are still exposed at high tide. To be officially recognised, at least two people must know the name of the island.

EASY TO IDENTIFY?

JUST establishing the name can be tricky as Brahmantya Satyamurti Poerwadi, of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, is finding out.

“It’s not so easy,” he said. “It can take up to six days to get to some of these faraway islands and then many people disagree on the name. Traditionally, it might have been called X but the people who live there call it Y and the nearby fishermen call it Z.”

Within Indonesia’s 1.9sq/km there are hundreds of languages, tribes and ethnicities which doesn’t help those trying to identify the islands.

“The 17,000 islands figure is a source of pride and concern at the same time,” said Evan Laksmana, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. “It highlights our diversity but also the challenges of separatism, security and decentralisation.”

By the time of the last UN Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names in 2012 only 13,466 islands had been registered by the Indonesian Government.

It is hoped at least 1700 more will be added to the list by August.

“That’s our list at the moment but the number will probably go up because we are in the process of validating and verifying islands right now and we will keep doing this till the end of July,” said Balok Budiyanto, who is leading the island hunting team.

WHAT DO THEY DO?

THE team has to visit every one of the islands to note the coordinates, the name, the meaning of the name, the history of the land and describe the landscape and its geographical history.

“We document all that in great detail and bring it back to the central team,” said Budiyanto.

It is hoped that if the new islands are recognised officially by the UN it will help protect Indonesia’s sovereignty over contested waters. The government claims that illegal fishing alone is costing the country £15.5 billion in lost revenues every year.

Global warming adds another layer of complexity to the issue as many of the islands are threatened by rising sea levels. The majority of small islands are only one metre above sea level and it’s predicted that at least 2000 could be lost by 2030 because of rising sea levels, although less than half of Indonesia’s islands are thought to be inhabited.

In addition, Singapore has incurred the wrath of Indonesia for importing sand from some of the uninhabited islands in the archipelago. Indonesia claims the sand mines have virtually wiped some islands from the map.

However, no matter how many islands Indonesia turns out to have it will still be less than Finland, the country with the most islands in the world at 178,947.