Yogyakarta Regional Government: Development In Philosophy Asymptomatic Areas Must Go Through An Assessment

Drivers passing near the Yogyakarta Palace, DI Yogyakarta, Tuesday (19/9/2023/ANTARA PHOTO/Hendra Nurdiyansyah/rwa.

YOGYAKARTA - The Yogyakarta Special Region Culture Service stated that various development activities along the Yogyakarta Philosophy Axis had to go through an assessment after the area was officially designated by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage.

"Development in the Philosophy Axis area must go through several assessments. Later there will be a kind of 'heritage impact assessment'," said DIY Disbud Secretary Cahyo Widayat in a virtual discussion entitled "Yogyakarta Philosophy Season Between DIY Communities More Prosperous and Empowered" in Yogyakarta reported by ANTARA, Thursday, September 21.

This provision, said Cahyo, is contained in the Yogyakarta Philosophy Philosophy Program management plan which has been prepared by Disbud DIY as one of the requirements for submitting world cultural heritage to UNESCO.

In the management plan, it is stated that the first step taken by the DIY Regional Government is to reduce environmental pressure starting from traffic congestion, air pollution, and development pressure.

Regarding reducing development pressure, according to Cahyo, development activities in the Philosophy Asbu area must later go through aheritage impact assessment (HIA) or assessment of the impact of cultural heritage.

Development in the region must also use a historical city landscape (HUL) approach or historical urban landscape.

The reduction in natural disaster pressures, continued Cahyo, will be the focus of the next DIY Regional Government regarding the preservation of the world heritage area.

"Because DIY secretly also has a lot of potential disasters, there is Mount Merapi, earthquakes, and hurricanes, so we will prepare matters related to natural disaster preparedness. Later the DIY BPBD will support it," he said.

The DIY local government, said Cahyo, will immediately prepare a working group or management agency for a cultural heritage area involving the Yogyakarta Government, the Yogyakarta City Government, and the Bantul Regency Government, as well as other stakeholder elements.

"It is not only the domain of the cultural service, we will collaborate with many parties, including the government, the private sector, and the community," he said.

Because it belongs to the world, according to him, the world will take responsibility in terms of its entrepreneurship.

Various activities including tourism in the region must have standards or world levels.

"After becoming a world heritage, world tourists will come, so various level tourism activities must follow world levels," he said.

Deputy Chairperson of the DIY DPRD, Huda Tri Yudiana, said that he would support the entire Yogyakarta Philosophy Axis preservation program as well as use it as capital to improve people's welfare through tourism activities.

Huda hopes that the Philosophy Axis will not have the same fate as several other world heritages whose tourist attraction did not last long.

"For example, the mining area in Sawah Lunto is busy with tourism for two to three years, after that it's quiet. But, for Philosophy Axis because it has been designed from the start, Yogyakarta has the main capital," he said.

Previously, UNESCO established the Yogyakarta Philosophy Axis as one of Indonesia's world heritages at the 45th Session of the World Heritage Committee or WHC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Monday (18/9).

The Yogyakarta Philosophy Axis on the UNESCO World Heritage List entitled "The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and It's Historical Landmarks" is recognized as a world heritage, because it is considered to have an important universal meaning.

The concept of spatial planning, known as the Yogyakarta Philosophy Axis, was first initiated by the First King of the Ngayogyakarta Sultanate Hadiningrat in the 18th century.

This spatial layout concept was created based on the Javanese conception and in the form of a straight road structure that stretches between the Krapyak Stage to the south, the Yogyakarta Kraton and the Yogyakarta Tugu to the north.