For the
month of October, people walking past Times Square in New York City will see a
large billboard with a picture of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat islands, accompanied
with the tagline “escape to a magical place.” But the appeal of the image hides
the abject poverty of the people living on the islands.
A cluster of islands in the Bird’s Head
peninsula of West Papua in Indonesia, Raja Ampat is one of the best diving
spots in the world. It’s a pristine and biodiverse marine environment where you
can see colorful tropical fish with the naked eye from above the water.
Formerly known as Irian Jaya, the western
half of the island of Papua was claimed by Indonesia in 1961. The people of
West Papua voted to become a part of Indonesia in a widely disputed plebiscite
in 1969 and in 2003 the territory was divided into two provinces – West Papua
and Papua. But they are generally referred to together as West Papua.
There is a pro-independence movement
across Papua, especially in the highlands, and the police and military
frequently crack down on separatists. But the coastal areas, including Raja
Ampat, is politically stable and safe.
The islands have abundant natural beauty
that make them look like an earthly paradise. But of the more than 45,000
residents, around 20 percent live below the poverty line with poor access to
education, health care, and markets.
Data shows that in 2015, a household of
four to five people in Raja Ampat spent an average of $65 a month on food and
other consumables. That’s 10 percent higher than the national average because
the cost of living on the islands is so high.
Relative isolation
It takes around eight hours to reach Raja
Ampat from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta. From Jakarta, you either get a direct
flight to Sorong, or have to stop in Makassar, on the island of Sulawesi
between Java and Papua, and then continue the flight to Sorong, on the
northwest tip of Papua.
Then you get on a ferry to Waigeo island
(also known as Amberi, or Waigiu), one of the four main islands of the 1,800
that make up Raja Ampat.
Waisai, the capital of Raja Ampat, is
located on Waigeo, the largest island in the group. It houses several cottages,
mostly owned by local elites. Most of Raja Ampat’s government and
administration activities are centered in Waisai. But the population is
scattered across many islands.
For my doctoral research, I stayed on
Mainyafun island, four hours by boat from Waisai, in April 2016. Mainyafun is
home to 55 households, with each family having between nine and 12 members.
Like in many towns in Raja Ampat,
Mainyafun doesn’t have a water treatment facility. Clean drinking water is
transported from Waisai either twice a month or once every two months depending
on the season. Villagers also collect rainwater for drinking. Water from the
mountain is piped into the village center, but it has very high mineral
content.
There’s no electricity and no phone
signal. Most people refer to education as “prestigious goods,” and only study
to the end of elementary school – the highest level available on the island.
To continue schooling beyond elementary
level, students in Manyaifun have to go to Waisai. The journey costs $100 one
way and takes four hours by fiberglass boat, often without safety equipment.
Scraping a living
Being in an area abundant with fish, most
people on the island earn their living as fishers. But a lot of them still live
in extreme poverty. Most families are indebted to the local mini store owner
who sells staple goods.
The price for the fish they sell is so low
that even if they catch ten kilograms of fish every day, they still lose money.
Fishers need five liters of fuel a day to operate their small boats. But fuel
is scarce and very expensive, and five liters costs $12.50.
The fishers sell to a collector in
Mainyafun who processes them into salted fish. The maximum selling price in
Mainyafun is$0.20 for a kilogram, so ten kilograms of fish gets around $2.
After the cost of fuel, that’s a loss of $10.50.
The price of fish in Waisai is ten times
higher, and it’s 20 times higher in Sorong. But fishers in Mainyafun have to
sell their fish right away because there’s no electricity to power cold storage.
People need bigger boats, cheaper fuel and
access to Waisai or Sorong markets to get a better price for their fish. But a
decent boat with an engine that can carry a larger volume of fish costs more
than $10,000, which is impossible for them to afford.
Lack of health care
There’s a small public community clinic in
Manyaifun. The one doctor and four nurses who work there serve seven
sub-districts scattered on neighboring islands.
Working conditions are hard. Many of their
patients are the fishers who leave their house at five in the morning and
return at five in the afternoon. Health workers have to be on standby all the
time.
The most common issues are malaria, skin
infections and respiratory diseases. Death in childbirth is common for women.
Only basic and generic medicines are available in the clinic and sometimes
stock is scarce.
Living on an isolated island with no phone
signal jeopardizes both health workers and the people they serve. Patients
needing emergency care, such as chronic malaria, often die. The only hospital
with decent equipment is located in the mainland city Sorong, 135 kilometers
away.
The health workers sometimes have to go to
neighboring islands for health emergencies on small boats. They have to ignore
the fact that sometimes the waves reach up to three meters. It’s worse if they
have to go at night time because there are no modern navigation tools or any
information about the expected weather.
Health workers are only able to meet their
families once or twice a year. Most of them come from Sorong and South
Sulawesi, which is 1,532 kilometers away. The basic salary of health workers as
civil servants or contract workers is $150 a month. This is the same all over
Indonesia, but that’s very small compared to the demands on the health workers
on Manyaifun, who are also sometimes paid late.
Getting better services
While Indonesia promotes Raja Ampat to the
world, local people and health workers feel abandoned. They rarely see
government officials in their district. According to my interviews with the
local doctor and nurses, bureaucrats in Waisai, especially from the health
agency, don’t care about their lives, safety or emotional needs.
The local government officials I
interviewed told me they tried to improve welfare by teaching people how to
build homestays for tourists and how to promote them online. But locals and
health workers said they had never met any official who’d visited their
district.
The poverty in Raja Ampat is a reflection
of the vital role of the state in the development process. Only through proper
attention from the elites in Raja Ampat, and supervision from the central
government, can change come to the impoverished people in the area. Until then,
Indonesia may want to think twice about advertising Raja Ampat as paradise on
earth.
Asmiati Malik is a doctoral researcher at
University of Birmingham
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