Backlash in Indonesia over ‘eco-friendly’ development plans for pristine Widi Islands

Environmental groups fear the project, dubbed an ‘opportunity of a lifetime’, would destroy the local environment and livelihoods

The archipelago of some 100 islands is home to endangered marine life and about 600 documented species of marine mammals, birds, insects and lizards

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One of the 100 or so uninhabited islets that make up the Widi Islands in Maluku, Indonesia. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:30am, 12 Dec 2022Updated: 8:52am, 12 Dec 2022

Environmentalists are outraged over an Indonesian firm’s decision to auction off the rights to develop a group of pristine, uninhabited islands, amid concerns that private tourism would destroy the biodiversity-rich area.

Leadership Islands Indonesia (LII), a Bali-based foreign capital firm, is working with British auction house Sotheby’s to seek investors for what it calls “a potential eco-conscious development” in the Widi Islands – an archipelago of some 100 islands that’s home to endangered marine life such as blue whales and about 600 documented species of marine mammals, birds, insects and lizards.

The Sotheby’s listing describes the deal as an “opportunity of a lifetime”, with some 10,000 hectares available for “at least 50 luxury eco-resort/residency ‘keys’”, ranging from one- to eight-bedroom villas to private estates, with a maximum of 500 keys across 17 islands. A planned 1,000-metre private airstrip will also connect the islands to Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia’s Cairns.

LII holds the exclusive rights to preserve the entire archipelago, which has a total land area of some 85,000 hectares, and the surrounding ocean inside the Marine Protected Area in North Maluku, a 375,000-hectare region that encompasses the Widi Islands.

Both companies have noted in the listing that “Indonesian law does not permit for private ownership of islands, however shares in a business with development rights can be sold to anyone”.

The winning party would acquire interests in LII and work with the firm “to conserve and sustainably develop” the islands, the listing said. Aside from eco-lodges, LII also plans to build a conservation centre with research programmes on issues such as tagging, tracking and monitoring of iconic and critically-endangered species.

But environmentalists have said that evidence shows an eco-tourism project would not be “entirely eco-friendly”.

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