Residents should grow productive plants: Sutiyoso

JAKARTA (JP): In an ambitious campaign to have a green and healthy city and self-supporting residents, Governor Sutiyoso urged city residents on Friday to grow productive plants, especially fruit trees, in their respective neighborhoods.

"Planting fruit trees will not only bring fresh air to the city, but will also provide sources of income to residents, especially low-income earners," he told reporters during a visit to three locations, earmarked as the sites for the city greening activities.

They were the Srengseng urban wooded area in West Jakarta, Ragunan seedling nursery in South Jakarta and Sukapura subdistrict in North Jakarta.

Head of the City Forestry Agency Ruchiyat Padmakusumah told the governor that the 15-hectare Srengseng wooded area had 51 species of plants and a total of 15,000 trees.

"The area has attracted eight types of bird and five types of butterfly. There are also bats, chameleons, insects, lizards, mongoose and wild rabbits," he said.

However, he said, the area had also brought about consequences.

"A lot of street vendors operate here, due to the large number of visitors, especially on Saturdays and Mondays. We also have to deal with people involved in vice."

Ruchiyat said there were 15 wooded areas, a total of some 338 hectares, in the city.

"We'll add some 344 hectares throughout the city until 2010.

"Ideally, the city should have 9,360 hectares of wooded areas and 28,089 hectares of parks," he added.

Later at the Ragunan seedling nursery, head of the City Farming Agency Srikanti briefed Sutiyoso on the free fruit tree program launched by the agency.

"Each resident will get two trees. They will then get technical assistance from our officials on how to foster the trees," Srikanti told the governor.

"The agency has planted 930,791 fruit trees. We still need to grow 725,229 trees to meet our target," she said.

She also said that the six-hectare nursery had stock of some 93,000 seedlings of seven local fruit trees, such as rambutan, mangga (mango), durian, jambu air and belimbing (star fruit).

Sutiyoso told the agency to impose a cross-subsidy in distributing the seedlings to residents.

"You can sell the seedlings at a low price to residents who can afford to pay. But you should not charge the poor ones," he said.

The money earned could be used to acquire more seedlings, he added.

Later in the afternoon, Sutiyoso expressed his satisfaction when he visited RW 06 (community unit) in Sukapura subdistrict which is full of productive mango trees. Most of the residents are teachers and employees of the North Jakarta mayoralty office.

"This is exactly what I have in mind about greening the city with productive trees," he said happily.

North Jakarta Mayor Soebagio said there were some 5,000 mango trees and 2,000 protective trees at the housing complex.

"We will gradually replace the protective trees with mango trees as you wished," he said.

To further show his gratitude, Sutiyoso ordered his staff to build a connecting road from the housing complex to the nearest highway.

"I was told that it took the employees and teachers two hours to reach the nearest highway. The road will soon be built," he said.

"Ongky, you must coordinate this project with the City Public Works Agency," he promptly ordered the city secretary's assistant for development administration, Ongky Sukasah. (05)