City sees urban forest in garbage

City sees urban forest in garbage

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta City administration has taken its
regreening program a step further by turning a former garbage
dump in Srengseng, West Jakarta, into an urban forest, a city
official reported over the weekend.

"The city administration has decided to change the 15-hectare
garbage dump into an urban forest," Aboejoewono, the chief of the
Jakarta Bureau of Environmental Guidance, said at a biodiversity
seminar opened by Minister of Health Sujudi on Saturday.

The seminar, which drew academics, government officials,
members of the business community and non-governmental
organizations, was organized by the University of Indonesia and
the Biodiversity Foundation.

Aboejoewono said that based on a central government policy,
and after President Soeharto launched the one-million-tree
program in 1993, Jakarta is working to create more spaces for
trees and to preserve the local environment.

Jakarta Governor Soerjadi Sudirdja said earlier that, ideally,
30 percent of the entire area of the capital city should be made
up of urban forest.

"But Jakarta can only afford to spare 15 percent of its area
for trees."

In addition to three nature preserves and one national garden,
the administration is now trying to create urban forests in the
heart of the city.

The nature preserves are located on islands in the Jakarta Bay
and in North Jakarta, while the national garden is located in the
northern coastal area.

An urban forest is a forest-like space that can help reduce
the effects of pollution and help overcome water shortages,
Aboejoewono explained.

Converting the trash area in Srengseng into an urban forest
will fill the absence of a main tree preserve in the western part
of the city.

"In the first stages we plan to plant the area with 300
trees," Aboejoewono said.

Jakarta's current five urban forests, planned by the Ministry
of Forestry, are located at the former Kemayoran airport in the
north of Jakarta; the Ragunan Zoo in the south; in the area
around the Halim Perdanakusuma airport in the east; and at the
Cilangkap Armed Forces headquarters, also in the east.

Aboejoewono added that residential gardens and the trees
lining the city's roads also have a pro-environment effect,
though most do not meet official urban forest requirements.

An urban forest must consist of at least 0.25 hectares of
land.

"Monas Park, which surrounds the National Monument in Central
Jakarta, could be developed into an urban forest," he said.

He added that East Jakarta is also preparing a buffer zone
area in the Pulo Gadung industrial estate to be an urban forest.

Aboejoewono said that land limitations and a lack of public
support are slowing the growth of urban forests.

Head of the Biodiversity Foundation Emil Salim, who is also a
former minister of environment, told the seminar that different
perceptions of urban forest concepts have posed problems for the
government's regreening program.

"Most people put economic interests before environmental
preservation," he said, adding that public and business awareness
will only be heightened through more information campaigns such
as this week's biodiversity conference.(03)