Archive for September, 2007
Jakarta, Sept. 10 (Xinhua): Some 60 nasalis larvatus (with local name bekantan monkey) were found living in group in an untapped forest by researchers from the South Kalimantan-chapter of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), Indonesian Antara News Agency reported on Sunday.
The finding of the endangered nasalis larvatus last August was incredible as the albino mammal has been threatened with extinction, according to South Kalimantan chapter of BKSDA chairman Siswoyo.
“The finding of around 60 bekantan monkeys which like to live in companionship in a solitary place is very encouraging,” he said.
Even Kaget island which was turned into a nasalis larvatus habitat only has a smaller number of nasalis larvatus. Nasalis larvatus population in the island has dwindled due to mining activities near the island, he added.
To maintain the population of the endangered animal, the South Kalimantan-chapter of BKSDA has asked local government to ban any group from doing activity in Kaget island.
“BKSDA has asked South Kalimantan governor Rudy Ariffin to help protect Kaget island from any mining activities which can harm the population of nasalis larvatus,” he said.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/
September 10th, 2007
By Sugita Katyal and Adhityani Arga
MAGELANG, Indonesia (Reuters Life!) - Like any historical monument, Indonesia’s magnificent Borobudur temple in central Java has suffered the ravages of time.
But now conservationists fear the world’s biggest Buddhist temple, topped with stupas and decorated with hundreds of reliefs depicting Buddhist thought and the life of Buddha, faces a new threat: climate change.
As global temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change, the dark stone temple, which dates from the 9th century, could deteriorate faster than normal, Marsis Sutopo, head of the Borobudur Heritage Conservation Institute, told Reuters.
“We are racing against the weather,” Sutopo said.
“Changing climate will have an impact on temple conservation efforts. Warmer temperature could theoretically cause more fissures and cracks in the stones,” he said, adding that acid rain has already eroded many of the reliefs.
Although no direct link has been found between climate change and the damage to Borobudur, Sutopo said a two-year study by Italian stone expert Costantino Meucci showed that higher precipitation is affecting the temple’s volcanic stone.
“Humidity allows moss and algae to grow on the stones already more than 1,000 years old. The stones have been exposed to the heat and humidity for so long, they have reached a critical point where deterioration is going to happen faster,” he said.
“We suspect changing climate will make it happen faster.”
NIRVANA
Borobudur, near Java’s ancient royal capital Yogyakarta, dates back to around 800 AD, long before Islam became the dominant religion in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
It represents a Buddhist view of the universe, comprising a series of square and circular terraces that allow visitors to move upward from the everyday world to a large bell-shaped stupa representing nirvana.
Steep stairways lead to the wide-open terraces, where stone-lattice stupas contain statues of Buddha overlooking the tropical green plain and its distant volcanoes.
The monument was neglected and abandoned for almost a thousand years before it was rediscovered beneath volcanic ash and jungle in the 1800s when a survey team investigated talk of a great ruin in central Java.
Borobudur’s conservation began during Dutch colonial times thanks to the efforts of a Dutch scientist, Van Erp, between 1907 and 1911.
But the most extensive and complex restoration work took place between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, and involved taking out each of the stones for cleaning and then reassembling them in the original layout. Waterproof layers and channels were also installed inside to protect the temple’s reliefs from rainwater.
Conservationists say Borobudur is just one of many world heritage sites, including the Tibetan monasteries in the Himalayas and the cultural monuments of Greece, that are threatened by global warming, although it isn’t necessarily endangered by the effects of climate change.
“One of the big problems is the deterioration of the stones, much exacerbated by early conservation efforts. Warming and humidity changes have added to the fungus,” said Richard Engelhardt, a Bangkok-based regional adviser at UNESCO for culture in Asia and the Pacific.
Although Borobudur was not affected by the 2006 earthquake in Yogyakarta which killed over 5,000 people, conservationists say the increasing frequency of earthquakes is also a challenge.
“The stones on the reliefs have not been affixed to the basic structure, so in case of a quake they could fall apart,” Sutopo said. “Indonesia is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. In the long run, quakes could destabilise the temple structure.”
Source: http://in.reuters.com/
September 7th, 2007
The city hopes its seafront areas will become tourism destinations as a private sector firm takes aim at establishing a maritime tourism facility at Sunda Kelapa port, North Jakarta.
“I hope this facility can attract international and domestic visitors, thereby increasing the city’s revenue. Serious attention to our seafront areas is crucial to developing Jakarta’s maritime tourism potential in 2008,” Governor Sutiyoso said Saturday.
Sutiyoso launched the colonial style Marina Batavia. The five-story building contains some 50,000 square meters of space, and its marina is able to accommodate 125 yachts.
In collaboration with the private sector, the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry and State Ministry for the Environment will hold an international exhibition next year to promote maritime travel and sports.
Marina Batavia also provides facilities for visitors wishing to travel to Thousand Islands regency and the Old Town in West Jakarta.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/
September 7th, 2007
The number of foreign tourist arrival in Indonesia in July increased by 16.31 percent to 423,500 people, compared with the same period last year, the National Statistic Bureau said on Monday.
The number of the tourist coming to Bali Island, the center of Indonesian tourist industry, increased to 171,700 people in July, up 33.49 percent compared with the same month last year, said the head of the bureau, Rusman Heriawan.
The travel ban from the European Union not to allow Indonesian airlines to enter its territory at the beginning of the month did not affect the industry.
“From our record in July, the number of foreign tourist arrivals from European countries did not decrease, but it increased compared with previous month,” said Heriawan at a press conference.
The European Union issued the ban as it considered that Indonesian airlines lack safety standard, following the string of air accidence since the beginning of this year.
The ban has been lifted.
The spread of the avian influenza virus to Bali Island, that killed two people, did not affect the industry, either, Indonesian Tourism Minister Jero Wacik has said.
“So far, there is no need to worry. The tourists keep coming,” said Wacik.
Indonesia targets 6 millions foreign tourist arrivals this year.
The country’s tourist industry was hit by Asian financial crisis in 1997 and terrorism.
Source: Xinhua
September 6th, 2007
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The ban by the European Aviation Authority for the Indonesian airlines to fly over its airspace does not affect the flow of European tourists arriving in Indonesia, a spokesman said.
“We do not see any impact of the ban on the flow of European tourists into Indonesia because in reality we have no airlines flying the European space,” Central Board of Statistics (BPS) head Rusman Heriawan said on Monday.
He said that the European tourists came to Indonesia aboard foreign flights.
Citing as an example, Heriawan said that the number of British tourists arriving in Indonesia in July reached 12,083, or an increase by 11.83 percent compared with that of the previous month which totaled 10,805.
He said the same case also happened to the number of German tourists which increased 26.73 percent from 8,017 to 10,160 in June. Drastic increase happened to the number of Dutch tourist arrivals which rose 93.30 percent from 9,124 to 17,637.
The BPS chief said that the overall number of tourists arriving in Indonesia in July increased 16.31 percent to 423.5 thousands if compared with that in the same period in 2006. But if compared with that in the previous month (June), it rose 2.57 percent only. (*)
Source: http://www.antara.co.id/en
September 5th, 2007
JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) - Foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia rose 12.9 percent to 2.57 million in the seven months to end July from the same period a year ago, data from the Central Bureau of Statistics showed Monday.
Arrivals via Ngurah Rai airport in the resort island of Bali surged 33.7 percent to 953,014 during the period. This makes Bali the most used of the 15 entry points to the country.
Meanwhile, arrivals via Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport declined 0.1 percent to 669,277.
In July alone, the arrivals via the 15 entry points reached 423,489, up 2.9 percent from June.
aloysius.bhui@thomson.com
alo/cl
Source: http://www.forbes.com/
September 4th, 2007
Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (ANTARA News) - Jatropha curcas linn trees raised in East Nusatenggara have a big potential causing an Israeli investor Merhavv Group to decide to invest US$700 million in the province, an Indonesian entrepreneur said.
“East Nusatenggara is suitable for the raising of jatropha curcas linn so that Merhavv Group is ready to make a big-scale investment in biofuel producing plantations,” Indonesian private firm PT Mahattan director Sudiro Andiwiguna said here Sunday.
Merhavv Group is prepared for a project to develop jatropha curcas into biofuel in Sulamu in Kupang district, he said after visiting the area.
Sudiro and Merhavv Group director Gideon Weinstein and two other Israeli businessmen, namely Jacgues Eshel and Yosef Ziv visited the jatropha curcas linn plantation in Sulamu on Friday.
The Merhavv Group representatives met with Kupang district head Ibrahim A. Medah also on Friday to discuss the plan.
The Kupang district administration has developed a biofuel plantation on 50,000 ha of land in Sulamu since 2006.
Sudiro said the investment of $700 million would also be used to manage 100,000 ha of jatropha curcas linn plantation in East Sumba district.
PT Manhattan Capital has told the agriculture minister and the energy and mineral resources minister about the program, he said adding that it will also work together with state agro firm PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI) to develop the jatropha curcas linn plant into biofuel in East Nusatenggara.
Meanwhile, Merhavv Group director Gideon Weinstein said his part certainly needed a large port for smooth investment.
In the meeting with Kupang district head Ibrahim A. Medah, Weinstein said his company needed a port which would be built on five hectares of land.
Ibrahim said the Kupang district administration would hold a meeting with the relevant agencies building the port in Sulamu area. (*)
Source: http://www.antara.co.id/en/
September 3rd, 2007
Peter Sellars explains why the future of film lies in Java. With the passing of artists like Bergman and Antonioni, who will be among the great names of world cinema for a new generation? Garin Nugroho is a name that is definitely going to be on that list. His are works that, like Bergman’s and Antonioni’s, are made in the spirit of the artist, with no apologies; taking the highest that art has to offer, and in so doing transforming the language of cinema itself.
Nugroho is Indonesia’s leading film-maker, creating a new level of artistic and political interest in Indonesian film. We in New Crowned Hope (the arts festival celebrating Mozart’s 250th birthday) were looking for film-makers who could make films that were content-rich and at the same time were real works of art. Garin Nugroho seemed the obvious artist to make a film for New Crowned Hope, and Opera Jawa is that film.
What we felt was important to realise - and you come across this when you travel, whether to central London or to downtown Jakarta - is that we are now in the presence of simultaneous cultures, simultaneous rhythms, simultaneous worldviews and simultaneous approaches to what it means to be alive. It’s precisely the prolixity of all these possibilities and all of these multiple realities and multiple cultures which is essential for democracy.
So Opera Jawa simultaneously gives us the world of Miss Indonesia (and everything that includes: power, glamour, beauty) alongside the refinement of Javanese classical dance, as well as a soundtrack that is constantly moving back and forth from sophisticated electronics to gamelan. We are also taken to the interiors of magnificent palaces (many of which no longer exist, having been destroyed in an earthquake last year - so this is the last film record of these extraordinary sites in central Java) and then onto a completely new set designed and created by a new generation of visual artists. All of these things sometimes exist within a single frame of the movie.
Garin’s engagement with major dance artists is key to Opera Jawa. Martinus Miroto is the greatest, most refined male dancer in Java, at the very height of a regal art form that comes from a tradition of the court of the sultans, with a very carefully cultivated, richly nuanced, sense of high art. Eko Supriyanto, who comes from Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), has a dangerous, wild, almost tribal energy surging through his body. Alongside these artists is the musical maestro Rahayu Supanggah and a group of musicians who composed and arranged all the elements of sound for Opera Jawa using a gamelan orchestra and tembang; and a former Miss Indonesia, Artika Sari Devi, who, aside from being magnificent to behold, is the representative of a whole generation of young Indonesians who intend to take on the issues facing the country.
Garin also invited a number of brilliant and well-known Indonesian installation artists to create the sets and imagery for the film. All of this means Opera Jawa creates a unique visual universe that at once defines the cinematic possibilities and at the same time redefines them.
But arguably the most extraordinary thing about Opera Jawa is that it is part of a culture where the epics are told and taught in an oral, not written, form. This “aurality” is experienced viscerally, inside the body; this experience itself is how literature is absorbed and transmitted. So many of the art forms here have no written tradition, and Opera Jawa is inviting master artists to record and thus preserve several lifetimes of learning and insight, experience and virtuosity, while they are still with us.
In Opera Jawa, film can be understood as an epic form again. The vocabulary and resources for this epic come from centuries of tradition - the Mahabharata and the Ramayana ask the same question of tradition: how do you tell a story? In Indonesia, it’s a centuries-old tradition with shadow puppets - cinema before cinema if you will. Opera Jawa takes this ancient cinema and fast-forwards it into an amazing future.
ยท Opera Jawa is released on September 7
Source: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/
September 3rd, 2007
Next Posts