Businessmen 'hinder greenery program'

Businessmen 'hinder greenery program'

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Surjadi Soedirdja expressed concern
yesterday over the reluctance of businessmen to fully support the
city's greenery program as it was against business interests.

"We have to deal with many businessmen who want to turn
certain green areas into business or commercial sites, even
though they know it's not allowed," Surjadi said after receiving
a delegation from the International Organization for Industrial,
Spiritual and Cultural Advancement from Tokyo.

The organization has been involved in an afforestation program
using mangrove trees on a 32-hectare plot of land in Muara Angke,
North Jakarta, since 1990. Yesterday's visit was intended to
review the latest development of the program.

Surjadi said the municipality was striving to be consistent in
upholding its policies, including in the afforestation program.

The municipality, he said, would remain patient even though
there was a strong demand to change green areas into commercial
sites.

Fortunately, he said, the public has started to realize the
importance of green areas in the city.

The governor specifically praised people in Ragunan, South
Jakarta, who actively participated in regreening the
neighborhood. "Some of them even ask the municipality to provide
tree seedlings," he said.

A dramatic increase in housing, offices, and public facilities
to accommodate the city's nine million people is blamed as the
main cause for the disappearance of the city's green areas.

Due to a land shortage, many green areas make way for gas
stations, local administrative offices and electric power
stations.

The city launched its first regreening campaign in 1989, which
then changed into the One Million Tree Movement in 1993, which
was declared by President Soeharto as the Year of the
Environment. The program's goal is to plant at least one million
trees a year.

Each of the city's five mayoralties was ordered to set aside
two hectares of land to support the regreening program.

National Monument Park and a former 15-hectare garbage dump in
Srengseng, West Jakarta, are areas that will be converted into
"urban forests".

Surjadi said, ideally, 30 percent of the capital's 65,000
hectares should be planted with trees.

He said, in reality, however, that "Jakarta can only afford to
spare 15 percent of its area for trees".

In Singapore, he said, 49 percent of the city area was set
aside for green projects.

The head of the City Park Agency, Syamsir Alam, said trees
were expected to cover 6,500 hectares of the city by the end of
2005.

He added that his agency has built seven artesian wells and
employed about 500 workers, including 10 landscapers, to maintain
city parks and gardens.

Last year, the city claimed it had planted over 3.47 million
trees, or 86 percent of its target of four million trees.

The head of the city's environmental bureau, Aboejoewono
Aboeprajitno, claimed recently that 1,937 hectares of land was
converted into parks and green areas last year. (ste)