'Sustainable development ignored'

'Sustainable development ignored'

Jakarta faces many serious environmental problems. In February, it was hit by massive floods, while previously, it was in dispute with Bekasi mayoralty over the city's main garbage dump in Bantar Gebang. In the meantime, many green areas have been altered into residential and trading places. Critics claim the administration has failed to deal with these problems seriously.

Tubagus H. Karbyanto, head of the urban division of the Jakarta Legal Institute (LBH) and newly elected city chapter chairman of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi).

"The city administration has no clear concept on sustainable development. Environmental damage has occurred for years and few efforts have been made to stop it.

The city's landuse plan was only made to justify and adjust to the damage that has already occurred.

Areas in the city that were earlier designed as green areas were transformed into yellow areas (residential areas), such as Kelapa Gading and Pantai Indah Kapuk in North Jakarta or red areas, (industrial/trading areas) such as Senayan in South Jakarta.

Many ponds that were supposed to be water catchment areas have now disappeared. The city's latest landuse plan in 1999 changed green areas into yellow and red areas.

Tjuk Sudono, a member of the City Council Commission D for development affairs and a councillor from the National Mandate Party (PAN).

"I think almost all city administration officials know about sustainable development. But it just stops at a concept and has never been applied.

The administration think that environmentally friendly development is expensive. They don't think about the future.

The dredging of Ciliwung River, for example, if it was handled properly, it could contribute more to reduce flooding in the city.

Of course, environmentally friendly programs need a lot more money, but they could avoid bigger losses, such as what happened in massive floods in February this year.

Setiawan Kanani, head of the City Planning Agency.

"The city administration always use the environment as a basis for development planning, particularly if it is related to the city's landuse plan.

But the problem is classic, that we have no money to apply an environmental program and restore environmental damage that has occurred in the past.

We admit that a lack of supervision and monitoring caused past environmental damage in many areas of the city.

What we can do now is to avoid similar damage from happening again.