Crisis forces city to 'sacrifice' its environmental programs
By Stevie Emilia
JAKARTA (JP): More pollution. That's the first thing that comes to mind after learning that the city plans to suspend its environmental programs due to its limited budget.
The city used to have a regreening program, a Blue Sky program -- which addressed air pollution -- and a clean river program.
Without these programs, Jakarta's sky could take on a grayer tinge than even before, while its small number of green areas may do little to help. Rivers will fill with garbage, causing floods to most parts of the city when it rains.
The decision to suspend the programs came as a big surprise to many environmentalists because it was made exactly two weeks after the celebration of World Environment Day on June 5.
Blame it on the limited budget.
The administration's 1998/1999 fiscal year budget has already suffered from the chopping block twice. Initially, the city's budget tallied in at Rp 3.2 trillion (US$216.9 million), but was cut to Rp 2.7 trillion and later to Rp 1.4 trillion as a result of the crisis.
Governor Sutiyoso said the current revised budget would be used to help needy Jakartans at the grassroots level. Although he indicated he would only suspend the three environment programs, he would not mention how long they would be held off.
The city's original Rp 3.2 trillion budget allocated Rp 25.5 billion to the environmental sector. Now, the city's environmental department doesn't even have an idea how much makes up its share of the current city budget.
Emmy Hafild, chairwoman of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), said the city's decision to put off the environmental programs was a "setback" to the efforts to improve the city's environment.
"The environment is being sacrificed," she said.
She warned that more funds would be needed to address the impacts of the environmental damages.
She also questioned the government's spending priorities in the budget.
The administration, for example, had installed decorative lights and other outdoor displays along certain main streets to commemorate the city's 471st anniversary on June 22, she said.
The city will also hold the annual Jakarta Fair, scheduled to begin Saturday and run until Aug. 2, she added.
"Such fancy activities are a waste of money and are unnecessary, but they're going on. The city should set its priorities straight. Protecting the environment is vital, especially because people's health is at stake," Emmy said.
She conceded that the city's celebration was far less glamorous compared to previous years, but found it surprising that the city was able to set aside Rp 350 million out of its budget for this year's commemoration.
The city has also collected Rp 815 million from 55 city-owned firms for outdoor displays.
The amount collected would be split almost evenly between the celebration of the city's anniversary and the country's Independence Day celebrations in August.
The Jakarta International Trade Fair Corporation, the organizer of this year's Jakarta Fair, has also set aside about Rp 3 billion for this year's festival -- less than half of last year's budget for the same event.
The corporation is 15 percent owned by the administration.
Emmy said she could not understand why these celebrations were to go on while environmental programs were being halted.
"Jakarta's environmental programs are too important to be stopped, even only temporarily," Emmy said.
She cited a 1996 World Health Organization report that said that stomach problems from unclean water was the number one killer of children under five years old, while the second killer was respiratory diseases caused by bad air quality.
"The administration should be the first to promote the need to protect the environment and improve its quality," Emmy said.
Concern
She raised concerns that pollution would get worse if the city was not committed to protecting the environment.
She has a point. It is the government which issues warnings or punishes polluters. The government is also responsible for designating certain areas into green areas.
And under the clean river program, or Prokasih, launched in 1989, the city was in charge of monitoring the cleanliness of five of its 13 rivers, both physically and chemically. The city also had to monitor whether nearby industries, hospitals and hotels polluted the rivers.
The Blue Sky program, started in 1996, aims to improve air quality in big cities, including Jakarta, which ranked third for the most polluted cities in the world after Mexico and Bangkok, according to United Nations 1996 statistics.
Two major sources of pollution identified by the program are motor vehicles and industrial plants. The city carried out vehicle emission tests under Blue Sky to fight air pollution.
The regreening project is also deemed by many as vital for the improvement of air quality here. Earlier, the administration had planned to turn 30 percent of the city's 65,000 hectares into green areas, much like the area around the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta. Only 15 percent of the city's area has been set aside for green areas.
The three programs, however, are often criticized for being short on action and for only carrying out limited measures. They are also seen to be dependent on public participation.
Still, there has been some progress.
More people seem to realize the health dangers of vehicle emissions and have started switching to environment-friendly fuels, such as compressed natural gas or unleaded gasoline. More industries, hotels and hospitals are now treating their waste before dumping them into rivers.
There was a 10 percent increase on the number of vehicles passing the emission tests, from 33 percent in 1996 to 44 percent last year.
"I don't know about the condition of rivers chemically, but I see that the garbage is not as much as it used to be," Emmy said.
The head of the city's environmental bureau, Aboejoewono Aboeprajitno, urged people not to misunderstand the decision, saying the administration had not completely scrapped the programs.
"It was not an easy choice, but we no longer have the budget to finance environmental programs."
The administration, he said, was still willing to facilitate NGOs or private sectors in organizing environmental campaigns.
For instance, he said, the city morally supported five-day emission tests last month held by Segar Jakartaku, an environmental organization.
Over previous years, the tests were jointly financed by the administration and a private company and were conducted for a seven-day period in various areas. But last month's test was only conducted at the National Monument area. The result was not yet available.