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)