Transmigration in Indonesia

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  • Transmigration in Indonesia
    • About
      • Indonesia is a rapidly developing country made up of thousands of small islands (approx 17,500 islands)
      • It is in South East Asia, to the North of Australia.
      • They have a high population growth of 1% per year.
      • Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world with 240 million inhabitants.
      • Two of the largest islands are Java and Sumatra. Java is the most densely populated with 60% (around 130 million) of the country's population.
      • As the populations is not evenly distributed, social and economic problems have arisen. For example on densely populated islands like java there is high unemployment rates, poverty and a lack of adequate services and housing.
    • Strategies
      • In the 50s and 60s the Indonesian government introduced the transmigration policy. The policy aims to reduce the impact of population growth.
      • The policy was an attempt to re distribute the population, they encouraged people to move from densely populated islands to the sparsely populated islands.
      • Transmigration allowed people to escape from the poverty of over crowded slums by becoming landowners elsewhere.
      • The encouragements to move included free transportation to their new home, a house and a small plot of land to farm and a living allowance for the first 18 months.
      • It was introduced due to fears of over crowding and low resources such as food, water, jobs and housing.
    • Problems
      • Transmigration is said to be the cause of the acceleration in the rate of deforestation of rainforests on the outer islands to make more farming land.
      • The resettlement costs have dramatically increased Indonesia's national debt.
      • Many didn't have the skills for farming or the land was too poor to be farmed.
      • Not everyone escaped poverty as it was just a re distribution of poverty.
      • People were moved to land that was already occupied by natives and has led to conflict.
    • Future concerns
      • There is a high risk of increasing population as the policy does not combat the causes of population growth it just distributes the population.
      • Indonesia's transmigration policy hasn't really helped towards sustainable development as only reduces the impacts of population growth, not actually population growth.
      • The population of Java is still 600-1000 per square kilometres.
  • Effectiveness of the strategeis
    • An estimated 20 million have been successfully moved from the more densely populated islands to the sparsely populated islands.
    • The policy has not been very successful at making a big difference to the population of Java which is the most densely populated island.
    • Critics suggest that the policy has just re distributed poverty as settlements were often poorly planned with little shops, roads or services.

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