About Java Island

Java plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia and is an island of about 130.000 km² (To compare the size with other countries for example the Netherlands is 40.844 km², Switzerland 40.808 km², Great Britain mainland 218.024 km², and Japan 365.360 km²). Java is the 13th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in Indonesia. It has a population of about 130 million in 2006 and therefore making it the most populous island in the world and the most densely populated regions on Earth. The average density of living inhabitants in Java is 862 people p/km² and increasing to some parts of Java (Jakarta) to 40.000 people p/km².

The extremely high population density on Java is largely a result of historical influences, and the very fertile soils which was formed mostly as the result of volcanic events many thousand years ago. A chain of volcanic mountains forms an east-west spine along the island.

Most of the today’s Global environmental and social problems as land degradation, loss of agriculture land, crises in water availability and quality, fragmentation and loss of natural habitats, and species extinction, energy shortness, poverty, were first found and experience in Java as the effect of the extreme population growth and density. These environmental and social problems becoming common in other parts of Asia and the world and spreading fast due to the fast Global growing population and the related explosive growth in demand and need for more food and energy. We therefore see Java as an excellent and crucial case for our Jatropha and other biomass projects to contribute in solving Java environmental, social, food and energy problems. Java is indeed the economic, social, political and cultural hub of Indonesia. The challenge is to deal with these current problems on Java and solving a significant part of it, so that our proven working model can then be adapted and adopted for other areas of the archipelago, Asia and other similar parts in the World with similar problems.