Jakartans begin regreening

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As the city's green areas continue to be asphalted under, many Jakartans are realizing the importance of planting trees and creating mini-green areas at home.

This new trend was evident from the hundreds of Jakartans visiting the flora and fauna exhibition at the Lapangan Banteng Park in Central Jakarta. The exhibition is open from Aug. 8 to Aug. 15, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Many visitors left the exhibition loaded down with fruit trees and flowering trees, which they intended to plant in their yards.

They said the trees would provide shade and a little bit of green around their houses, offering relief from the heat and pollution of the city.

"I don't know why, but I feel like it's getting hotter in the city," said Jumali, a resident of Kampung Bali in Central Jakarta, who bought a guava tree.

Deden Sumantri, who sells a variety of fruit trees, including durian, guava and orange, said he had sold 20 trees on Saturday by 3 p.m.

"We expect to sell about 30 trees a day. Saturday and Sunday are the best days because there are more visitors," Deden, a resident of Ragunan, South Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

But not all visitors were there to buy, with many people dropping in on the exhibition simply to enjoy the flowers, trees and animals on display.

The head of the City Park Agency, Mauritz Napitupulu, said more than 281 private vendors were taking part in the exhibition, more than half selling fruit trees and flowering trees.

"We encourage people to plant trees and flowers at their homes. If each house planted trees, it would be a significant contribution to regreening Jakarta," Mauritz said on Friday.

Less than 10 percent of the total area of the city is now classified as green areas.

The administration hopes to increase the green areas to 13.94 percent by 2010, but there are few signs that any steps are being taken to realize this goal. Even if the goal were to be accomplished, it would still be far from the ideal of 30 percent of the total area of the city being green.

It is not difficult to find green areas across the city that are being taken over by new office and retail buildings.

Many other green areas like parks and riverbanks have been occupied by houses, kiosks and other structures.

A lack of green areas can lead to worsening air pollution and higher temperatures, among other negative impacts.