Monthly Seminar of PUSTRAL-UGM “Concept Of Water Transportation And Tourism Development In Indonesia”

Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of over than 17,500 islands. Among them, there are five major islands, which are: Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua. Of the five islands, three of them have very large rivers with great potential to be developed for transportation purposes. They are Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Papua. Those rivers are used by the local community as a vital transportation infrastructure, particularly in inland areas of Borneo, eastern Sumatera, and Papua. Inland water transportation becomes the lifeblood of the people to connect to various residential, agricultural or mining and industrial areas.

Currently, however, inland water navigation has not been optimally developed by the government to support transportation and logistics activities. Modern technology has not been applied as well as the development concept of inland water navigation. As a consequence, its growth is far behind compared to road and railway (railroad) transportation.

To address the above issues, PUSTRAL-UGM conducts a monthly seminar on 2 March 2016 Large Meeting Room. The seminar takes place in the main meeting room of Pustral UGM. This seminar takes the concept of inland water navigation development in Indonesia and its relation to the concept of President Jokowi’s “Sea Toll” as well as tourism development as the topic. Various stakeholders (agencies) in Yogyakarta provincial government and academia attend it.

There are several points on inland water navigation are summarized in the seminar, as follows:

• The development of water navigation in Indonesia tends to be stagnant and not as rapid as land and air transportation.
• Efforts to develop water navigation needs to be supported by various parties (stakeholders) since it is not only become the responsibility of transportation agency.
• Issues on river management authority are indicated as the main obstacle to the development in regional level
• From the environmental aspect, water condition, such as major rivers in Indonesia which have the potential for inland water transportation, is facing silting up due to deforestation in the upstream.
• The development of water navigation in Indonesia requires a strong commitment from all stakeholders involved as well as careful planning. (Listi, Itok, & Muadz)