Agency to restore vanished parks

JAKARTA (JP): The City Park Agency hopes to restore two parks in each of Jakarta's five mayoralties each year in a drive to regreen the capital.

Over the last decade, 302 city parks covering 174.9 hectares have been reduced to 203 with 102.6 hectares through misappropriations, mostly for commercial use, the agency chief, Sjafril Zainuddin told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

This year the program will focus on strategic areas, including Medan Merdeka Park, which surrounds the National Monument (Monas), Sjafril said.

The agency also plans a campaign to encourage public participation, including companies, in planting trees and flowers on the city's main streets, he added.

In its target to regreen Jakarta and embellish it with flowers, fruit trees and birds, the agency will establish nurseries in every mayoralty, he said.

Tamrin Umar, the agency deputy chief, said the administration was serious in its campaign to recover the lost parks.

It has closed gasoline stations that were built on areas designated as parks, such as the ones on Jl. Lapangan Banteng and Jl. Musi in Central Jakarta, and Jl. Kunir in North Jakarta.

The city administration has been lenient toward people who set up kiosks in parks in recent years because many had lost their jobs during the economic crisis.

But since the situation has become out of control, the administration has begun to phase them out, and are hoping to restore the parks to their original function, he said.

Tamrin said many who had set up kiosks were really vendors and not people who were displaced by the economic crisis.

The City Park Agency was allocated Rp 2.7 billion to finance its park recovery program in the current fiscal year ending March 31. The figure is 55 percent lower than what it received in 1997/1998 before the economic crisis hit the country. (06)