Megacity Migration: Social-ecological Impacts of Relocating Indonesia’s Capital City to a Global Bio-cultural Hotspot

In 2019, Indonesia’s president announced that the country would relocate its capital city of Jakarta to reduce its vulnerability to climate change, more fairly distribute political power and contribute to a national vision of green growth. The resulting migration will have rapid, wide-ranging effects on the surrounding social, economic, political and ecological landscape, and require radical, interdisciplinary investigation in collaboration with local and international partners.

With collaborators and community partners, Wendy Erb is capturing perceptions about the migration’s impact, mapping biodiversity across the planned city location, monitoring social-ecological change and identifying migration-related spaces of concern. The team will use this information to generate hotspot maps that identify areas of social and ecological value, develop monitoring protocols to identify which spaces need further research attention and meet with state and civil society stakeholders to present the results.