Vegetation planted in the Nusantara Capital City (IKN) will comprise  several types of endemic and native plants, according to the Environment and Forestry Ministry.

“Types of plants that will be planted are endemic species, native species, mosquito repellents, and plants that animals consume,” the ministry’s official, Dyah Murtiningsih, noted at the Indonesian Pavilion discussion at the Egypt COP-27 streamed online, Monday.

The development of IKN, which adopts the Forest City concept, considers landscape and biodiversity management, so that it can be a natural habitat for plants and animals endemic to the East Kalimantan region.

The government currently encourages forest and land rehabilitation around IKN’s region. Earlier, the region was filled with monoculture plants and industry vegetation, such as eucalyptus.

“Forest and land rehabilitation will involve the local community to restore the monoculture forest into a tropical rainforest, with a variety of vegetation,” she remarked.

The total area in IKN’s Central Government Core Zone that will be transformed until 2023 is 984 hectares from 4,600 hectares targeted to be completed by 2024.

“Currently, the forest and land rehabilitation process for the transformation is still ongoing, with the target area of 917 hectares until the end of 2022,” she noted.

On the occasion, Dean of Mulawarman University’s Faculty of Forestry, Rudianto Amirta, noted that transformation into a natural tropical forest will produce several changes.

Tropical rainforest will have a high variety of diverse species, be capable of storing water, and be a place where plants can grow to support the animals around them.

“We expect to be able to transform the forest, from a plantation forest to a rainforest ecosystem,” he stated.

To do this, the government is considering to use 25 plant families and genera of lowland dipterocarp rainforest frequently found in Kalimantan.

Source: Antara News