Governor asks for help to green the city
JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso has urged public and private parties in the capital to help the administration maintain the city's forests and, if necessary, plant more trees to spruce up the capital.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, the governor said his administration could "do nothing" to preserve existing trees due to cuts in the city budget for this year.
He said the authorities had no choice but to rely on help from the public and the business community in particular to make the campaign to green the city a success.
"People should be aware that we all badly need adequate space for city forests which would provide habitat for wildlife and act as the city's lungs by helping to clean the air," Sutiyoso said after inaugurating the 10-hectare Wales Barat city forest at the University of Indonesia's Depok campus to the south of here.
He admitted that the space available for city forests in the capital was now very limited and expressed his disapproval of building owners who displayed a reluctance to plant trees in the grounds of their properties.
He promised to send them letters urging them to plant more trees.
The governor, who is also an active three-star general in the military, refused to disclose what punishment he had in store for property owners who continued to ignore his pleas, saying only: "They should be ashamed if they have to be summoned by the governor only to talk about planting trees."
The greening program, he said, "is in the interests of the next generation".
He also questioned why many developers were reluctant to replant trees once construction projects have been completed.
"It's not surprising why many parts of Jakarta are often inundated with floods every rainy season because we have fewer and fewer water catchment areas," he said.
During the ceremony in Depok, Sutiyoso ceremonially planted one of the 6,500 trees from 100 species which will be grown on the site.
The Rp 1.3 billion project is being financed by Mobil Oil Indonesia to mark its 100th anniversary, which falls this year.
The acting head of the forestry ministry's city office, Ade Djuhariah Saal, said Jakarta, which covers an area of 655 square kilometers, currently has only 300 hectares of forest spread over 15 locations. Some of the forested areas can be found at Srengseng in South Jakarta, and at Cilangkap and Cijantung in East Jakarta.
The ideal area for a city the size of Jakarta would be about 720 hectares, she said.
"Some of the forests have been turned into housing complexes and golf courses or put to other uses," Ade said, citing forests in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, and Pluit, North Jakarta.
Ade claimed a plot of at least 250 square meters in size with trees planted on it could be classed as a city forest. (ind/bsr)