Berliners hold on to trees to protect environment

By Stevie Emilia

BERLIN (JP): Parents playing or strolling with their children are common sights in Berlin's parks when the trees turn green again.

But the greenery is not the only attraction of the parks here.

Strategically located in almost every corner of the city, each park usually has cafes, lakes for boat rides, lawn games such as giant chess and table tennis. The green spaces provide a restful sanctuary away from the city's bustle and ubiquitous construction work.

"I like taking my children to play in the parks because it is healthy, they can breathe fresh air and play at the same time," said resident Klaus Herbert.

He was with his two children, a four-year-old boy and six- month-old baby girl, to the Schloss Garten, a park behind Charlottenburg palace, which is now a museum.

Many come to the parks simply to nap, chat, read or listen to tunes played by street musicians.

The parks reflect the city authorities' realization, largely thanks to strong public environmental awareness, of the need to maintain its green areas.

For comparison, Jakarta's parks are few and far between because residents are told any empty space would be better used to house nine million residents. The once-booming economy also led to the use of large areas for quick yielding projects like malls.

In 1994, Berlin's legislature passed the first zoning plan for the whole city, both in the former eastern and western part.

A lecturer in environmental management, Lutz Wicke, said that the zoning plan was the most important political decision taken for a long time on the conservation and extension of parks and green areas within the city.

The lecturer of the Technische Universitt Berlin added: "It (the plan) shows that Berlin wants to maintain its image as a green city."

Green areas, he said, were very important not only as recreation sites for residents, but also to assure cleaner air.

"Green areas can help counter air pollution," he said.

At present, about 17,360 hectares, or 20 percent of Berlin's 884-square-kilometer area, are green areas. Jakarta can only spare 15 percent of its 65,000 hectares for green areas.

A Berliner cited the public's role in, literally, clinging on to their trees.

Peter Prfert, addressing attendants from several countries in an environmental program here for journalists, said:

"If the authority plans to turn a park into a development site, people would come from all over the city and then hold on to each tree in the park for days, making it impossible for the plan to go through."

Prfert is the director of the print-media program of the International Institute for Journalism of the German Foundation for International Development.

When a resident wanted to cut down a tree in his own yard, especially if the tree was over two meters high, he had to get a permit from the authority, he said.

Jakarta has a similar rule but, as with so many others, it is not implemented.

An official, Prfert said, would check the request firsthand and examine the tree before the office finally released a permit. "But, you should have a solid reason for wanting to cut down the tree."

He knows the procedures from experience after he applied to cut down a tree in his backyard because some of its branches often broke his windows.

After several months, the authority finally released the permit.

"They (officials) even questioned my neighbors about how I treated my own garden and whether it was true the tree's branches broke my window," Prfert said.