Parks languish at priority list bottom

Parks languish at priority list bottom

JAKARTA (JP): No wonder parks and fields are difficult to find
here: they occupy the lowest priority level in the city's master
plan.

Untung Widodo, the head of the Inter-Municipalities
Organization (BKS-AKSI), said recently that ideally, more
attention should be paid to the provision of green space.

"Our most important needs were initially housing and work
places when the government began arranging the master plan 11
years ago," he said, "Green areas had yet to receive more
attention."

Now, he urged, other needs should be curbed to make way for
green areas. Currently, it is still the other way round: data
from the city parks agency shows that 543,907 hectares of green
areas are being used for other purposes. Of this, 306,649
hectares alone are in Central Jakarta.

Green space occupies a final ninth position on the 1985 - 2005
master plan's list of "general policies". Numbers 1 to 8 are
considerations for population growth, work space, housing,
industry, transport, drinking water and water sources, floods and
drainage and public facilities, including roads and commercial
centers.

Untung said that however important these other factors are,
the provision of green space should be possible if rules on
changing the master plan are followed consistently.

Green space, in the form of parks and natural or man-made
forests, are vital in their role as the city's "lungs" to produce
oxygen, besides providing shade for weary traders and
pedestrians.

The city, which sprawls across 65,000 hectares, has at least
19,500 hectares of parks and natural or man-made forests.

Student violence has been attributed to a lack of fields to
accommodate sports matches. The city's One Million Tree Program
is also limited by a lack of space.

In the master plan "open green space" also includes coast
conservation and river maintenance, including riverbanks.
Maintenance of existing sites and creating new ones in
cooperation with the private sector are also on the list.

The city was last recorded to have green space amounting to
only 12 percent of its total area, or 7,800 hectares, including
465 small and large parks with a total area of less than 350
hectares.

Many evictions of slum residents have been announced as steps
to return the sites to green areas, as marked in the master plan.

But residents are often skeptical, as they point to other
vacated areas in which billboards showing high-rise buildings
have been erected.

Untung said that based on a decree on the master plan, changes
are possible only if both the governor and city council agree.

"But control of their enforcement is in a mess," he said.

Earlier, former director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute,
Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, said that many eviction cases
indicated practices of changing details of the master plan, or
local spatial plans, without agreement between the governor and
city council.

"Green areas can be turned into areas for housing or
commercial purposes," she said, citing Kampung Sawah in West
Jakarta.

Suspicions aside, an important effort to increase green space
includes plans for a 15-hectare urban forest and park site in
Srengseng, West Jakarta, to be completed next year. This will add
to the city's protected areas, which also include the islands and
coral reefs of the Seribu Islands.

Aboejoewono, who heads the city's environmental bureau, said
that in the new forest, young and old will be able to enjoy bird
watching and duck feeding, besides picnicking among the trees.

More promises are in plans for the new town in Kemayoran,
Central Jakarta, which includes a conservation site for local
vegetation and various birds.

Also notable is the greening of cemeteries, aimed at
dispelling their ghostly image. The Karet cemetery in South
Jakarta is now lined with grass and young trees to replace its
former walls.

Another plan is for the reclamation of the city's north coast,
which promises to not only increase residential and commercial
space, but also improve maintenance of the beach and replant the
mangrove forest.

The recent city rule justifying the reclamation was issued in
line with the requisite that both the governor and city council
agree on changes in master plan.

Untung also said that utmost care is needed when sacrificing
vegetation area for building purposes.

"The necessary technology is expensive, and one must be
careful in changing the ecology," Untung said. (anr/yns))