From Dr. Hiltrud Cordes, Project Manager/ October 2, 2013:
Banjiiiiir!
Dear turtle friends,
last week I arrived in the town Tanjung Redeb, capital of Berau regency
in East Kalimantan, where the head office of our project is based. We had a
very good start with introducing a new
accounting software. Our office staff Rachmad and Vera (carefully supervised by
„best boy“ Aang) find the new software very handy and easy to understand.
Since we have a guest room at the office, I am
living there, too. Early this morning around 4 a.m. I woke up because of a
heavy thunderstorm, but since the sound of rain makes me sleepy anyway, I fall
asleep again soon. Aang woke me up an hour later (it was still dark), shouting
„banjiiiir“, meaning ‚flooding‘ in
indonesian. I got up quickly and found myself standing in water. Using the
tourches of our mobile phones, the first thing we did, was unplug all electric
devices and lift them from the floor. It was still raining and daylight was
still dim at around 6.30 a.m. This is what I saw:
The water was slowy running from the street
through our house, with a water level of about 30 centimeters (12 inches).
Since there was not much we could do anyway, I took some photos of the traffic
in front of our house which was more or less „business as usual“:
Office work will now stop for some days until
everything is dry and clean again. I was evacuated into a nearby hotel. We rented
this office last year with a contract until september 2014. The house was
flooded two times before, but water level was much lower then. Since it is
common in Indonesia to pay the contract of a house in advance without any
possibility to get the money back, we have to stay in this office for another
year – unless we want to lose our money.
Flooding like this is a quite new phenomenon
in Tanjung Redeb. A heavy rainfall of about 2 hours, in combination with high
tide,is enough to flood the
lower parts of the town. Newer houses in these areas are now built on elevated construction.
The reason why these floodings occur now is
quite clear and everybody knows it. Destruction of the forests for palm oil
plantations and coal mining results in rainwater not being held back by the
vegetation, but running on the surface into the river systems. The natural
drainage system is not able to deal with such amounts of water anymore.
I have been flying to Berau for 13 years now,
always trying to take areal pictures when approaching the airport of Tanjung
Redeb, if weather conditions are good enough. Here are two pictures of the same
region – 2004 and 2013:
Sediments washed into the ocean as a result of
this development have already reached the coral reefs of the Derawan islands.
We therefore have to work hand in hand with our colleagues who are working for
conservation of the tropical rainforests. I hope with programs such as REDD+ we
will be able to make a change!
