'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.