Waterfront City project in Majene in Indonesia face opposition from fishermen

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

For the last two years, the government of Majene district in West Sulawesi province has been developing the Waterfront City project on 18 hectares (44 acres) of land in the region. District head Fahmi Massiara aims to turn the area into a modern coastal city with tourist attractions.

However, environmentalists and fishers have opposed this project, and said that it will destroy the coastal ecosystem and deprive fishing households from their main source of living.

“Many oppose, but are afraid to speak out. Afraid of being intimidated,” said Ridwan Tajuddin, 32, a fisherman from Cilallang, one of the villages that will be included in the Waterfront City project.

In this list of villages, Cilallang is relatively new, established in the 1990s by poor migrants moving to the area for fishing. Most still depend on fishing and related activities for food, send their kids to school, and patch up their houses.

Those homes — shacks of wood and corrugated tin — don’t fit into the plan for the Waterfront City project, which will house a museum, park, floating mosque, hotel and tourist attractions. While this project mainly encompasses reclaiming new land on the coast, it also includes building dikes. Ridwan said that it is this feature of the project that will create problems for fishermen, i.e. the dikes. They will increase the power of the waves crashing on their small stretch of beach.

“Kids can’t play by the beach anymore,” Ridwan said.

In the neighboring village of Parappe, fellow fisherman Abdul Rifai is also not in favor of this project. “We’ve gone against it, but what can we do when the government wants it?” Rifai said.

The fishers of Parappe opine that they’re already experiencing the impact of stronger waves, redirected to their area by ongoing construction of one of the dikes. Concerning their plea to stop the project, the government said that it would build a wave breaker instead.

“We could die. Our boat already broke. It’s deep here, about 3 meters [10 feet]. Plus, the waves in this area are very choppy,” Rifai said.

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