JP/3/FOREST/0

NGO calls for reforestation in the city

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Environmental Development Organization has expressed concern over the lack of land for urban forests in the city.

"Ideally, this metropolitan city should have at least 20,000 hectares of urban forests. But it has only 1,800 hectares, or nine percent of the ideal area," Agus Miftach, head of the organization, said Thursday.

The existing urban forests lie in the areas of the Halim Perdana Kusuma air base; Lenteng Agung, the defunct Kemayoran airport; the University of Indonesia campus in Depok and in Angke Kapuk in Cengkareng, West Jakarta.

According to the organization, over 100 hectares of forests in Angke Kapuk have been converted into the Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) recreation and housing complex.

"What has happened in Kapuk is not a way to save the existing forests, but a progressive drive to narrow the forest area, which sooner or later will result in destructive ecological effects," Agus said.

The organization proposed to the city administration to cancel the plan of the city office of the Ministry of Forestry to open its office at the Pantai Indah Kapuk housing complex.

"It's not ethical for the Ministry of Forestry to build its branch office on a deforested area," Agus stated.

He noted that the replacement of the mangrove forests with plots at Sukabumi in West Java by PT Manggara Permai, developer of the PIK project, does not answer the city's environmental problems.

"Of course it is not a matter of exchanging plots, but the balance of the city's ecosystem, which badly needs reforestation, not deforestation like what has happened in Kapuk," Agus said.

The PIK project has been partly blamed for floods on the Prof. Sediyatmo toll road, which leads to the Sukarno-Hatta airport, and the surrounding areas.

Other effects of the deforestation can bee seen from the rise in temperature and accumulation of carbon-dioxide in the area as well as the intrusion of sea water, which has currently reached 27 percent.

Agus argued the seepage in some areas of Jakarta is not caused by the excessive exploitation of ground water, as long believed by the public, but by deforestation, especially along Jakarta coastlines.

"If forests were conserved, I don't think the seepage would occur," he said.

The organization called on the city administration to reforest the Angke Kapuk area and Jakarta coastlines so the seepage can be reduced or stopped altogether.

"The forest is a dominant element of the ecosystem. Its functions cannot be replaced by other factors. Without forests, this city will not be able to bear the destruction of its ecosystem," Agus stated. (11)