Petition updateCease the Construction of the Kluet DamLeuser being eaten by roads
Nicholas AldenRushford, NY, United States
Aug 18, 2017 — https://news.mongabay.com/…/road-projects-threaten-sumatra…/ "Hundreds of kilometers of roads are planned for Aceh Province’s Mount Leuser National Park and the broader Leuser Ecosystem it is part of. The area is famed as the last place on Earth where tigers, orangutans, elephants and rhinoceros still coexist in the wild. However, many local officials see more and faster roads as a way to connect isolated villages and bring economic growth to the province, which was hard-hit by both the 2004 Tsunami and decades of conflict. Dating back to 2002, a 400-kilometer road network called the Ladia Galaska has been cited as one of the most damaging projects worldwide by William Laurance, a research professor at Australia’s James Cook University. The current Aceh land-use plan contains an expansion of the Ladia Galaska plan, slated to slice through highly sensitive areas of the Leuser Ecosystem and connect the east and west coasts of Aceh. Acehnese conservationist Rudi Putra, who was awarded Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014 for his work in protecting the Leuser ecosystem, said that the Ladia Galaska project is still going strong, with at least 70 percent of the project already completed. 'It’s been ongoing since 2002. In the past, it was temporarily halted due to the escalating conflict in Aceh. But after the peace deal was signed [in 2005], the project proceeded,' he told Mongabay. 'Now the name of the project is no longer Ladia Galaska because they [the government] have divided the project into small segments and every year the local governments allocate big budgets for the project.' With hundreds of kilometers of paved road having been built, encroachment and habitat loss are inevitable. 'Last year, a road to reach a village called Lesten [in Gayo Lues district] was built with a budget of 15 billion rupiah [$1.1 million]. Even before the construction of the road was finished, encroachment already ate up forests on both sides of the road,' Rudi said. 'There’s no road built in the Leuser ecosystem that isn’t followed by encroachment.' The new governor of Aceh, Irwandi Yusuf, who was sworn in the office in July, vowed during his campaign to protect the Leuser Ecosystem, saying he would revoke a proposal to drill for geothermal energy in the park. 'From his statement, it was clear that he would cancel the geothermal project. But I haven’t heard a single statement from him on whether he would cancel the road development projects or not. Hopefully, he’d think of it,' Rudi said."
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