Malang (Greeners) – A new study reported in Monday (5/9) that damaged karst happened the most in East Java followed by West Java, Central Java, and Yogyakarta.
Eko Haryono, karst expert of Gadjah Mada University, said that at least 20 percent out of 1,222,538.5 hectares of the landscape in Java island was destroyed. In addition, a total of 9.5 percent of karst landscape in the country is damaged.
“At least 9.5 percent from the total areas of 155,000 square kilometers is damaged due to illegal mining and land use changes,” said Haryono.
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Haryono said bad karst management in Indonesia was also as a result from decentralization, especially on limestone mining permit authority. He added that regulations on karst management issued by central government have become less effective.
“Most of the times the policies are clashing with local government policy making,” he said adding there was no legal basis on implementing landscape conservation in the country.
Current regulations, he added, would only regulate on biodiversity and cultural conservation.
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Haryono, who is also head of Asian Union of Speleology, said that limestone industry which has the tendency to stay close to its supplier resulted in investors pushing investment and instead destroying the landscape.
He underlined the importance of karst landscape as clean water and carbon storage of up to 13,482 Gigagram per year.
Reports by HI/G17
21 Apr 2024 
