NAGEKEO, Indonesia — The land weighed on Mateus Bhui as he sifted the Rendubutowe soil through his fingers into a traditional container. “To our ancestors: please don’t be angry,” Mateus said, repeating the lament as he clasped another handful of earth. “I never wanted to sell this land.” Mateus leads the Woe Dhiri Ke’o, one of several Indigenous communities in Rendubutowe, a rugged upland of Indonesia’s Flores Island, traversed by generations of farmers, herders and weavers. Soon, however, Matheus’s home will be the site of a 1.4 trillion rupiah ($88 million) reservoir, which is needed to provide water for the population of the wider Nagekeo district. A decade ago, Indonesia’s public works ministry drew up a blueprint for a network of seven dams to help quench the thirst afflicting much of East Nusa Tenggara province during its punishing dry season. “East Nusa Tenggara is in dire need of reservoirs to cope with the water shortage faced by humans, animals and plants,” the ministry reported in 2015. A recent review in the journal Water Supply of 100 academic studies published from 2000-2023 concluded that “climate change possesses serious threats on Indonesia’s water resources in the future unless it is anticipated and tackled properly.” The Lambo Dam was designated a national priority infrastructure project and will stand at 48 meters (157 feet) high, creating a reservoir holding 51.73 million cubic meters (13.67 billion gallons) of water across 500 hectares (1,240 acres) of land. Construction by an Indonesian state-owned firm began in 2021.…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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