Wildlife

This is a photograph that I took at school yesterday. I just happened to have my camera on me when this moth, about the size of a dinner plate, landed near to me. I was the only one who saw it, there was no one else around. I've edited the background of the photograph to enhance its shape. It was the first moth of this size that I'd seen in Jakarta and it reminded me of the general disregard for nature that exists here in Indonesia. It's rare to see a natural creature apart from ants.

Progress seems to be measured by the extent to which humans can impose themselves on the natural environment with little thought to the environmental consequences. Most of the aquifer in Jakarta is contaminated by E-coli because septic tanks leach their contents into the ground. Jakarta has no sewerage system. There is so much water being pumped out of the aquifer by high rise buildings and malls that ground levels have subsided by a metre or more in places. Salt water has begun to penetrate further into the aquifer so that areas near the harbour cannot use the groundwater because of its salinity. Most of the population is reliant on groundwater because the reticulated water system is very limited.

The rivers are convenient places to dispose of household and industrial waste. They are clogged with rubbish and are uniformly putrid. They get flushed out in the rainy season and then the cycle of pollution starts all over again. Residences are kept clean but what happens to the rubbish that is removed is apparently of no concern. It's OK to toss it into a vacant lot, sweep it into the gutter, dump it in a river. Ecological awareness doesn't extend past the boundary of the property. There is no sustained educational initiative to change these attitudes and so Indonesian children are destined to be as ecologically ignorant as their parents. The future can only be worse because there is limited awareness that anything is even wrong and certainly no willingness to do anything about it.