Sutiyoso plans regreening project to fulfill dream of fruitful city

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Pepaya, mangga, pisang, jambu, dibawa dari Pasar Minggu (papaya, mango, banana, guava, brought from Pasar Minggu) goes a popular folk song depicting Pasar Minggu in South Jakarta as a fruit-producing area.

Today, however, Pasar Minggu has turned into a bustling urban area with modern markets and residences and is notorious for perpetual traffic congestion.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, however, now has a much more ambitious project -- turning the whole capital into a Pasar Minggu of the old days by offering fruit trees for free.

Sutiyoso, a retired Army general, encouraged people on Friday to replant their disused land with around 115,000 free fruit trees worth Rp 11.5 billion that the administration will provide.

"We don't have to acquire land since the residents themselves will provide their land for the replanting and will grow fruit trees," City Forestry and Agriculture Agency head Mauritz Napitupulu quoted Sutiyoso as saying during a meeting at City Hall.

Mauritz stressed that the program would be more effective than previous replanting programs, which mostly relied on land owned by the administration.

"To encourage residents to take part in the campaign, we will let them reap all the benefits from the fruit trees planted. Officers from our agency will help take care of the trees once a month," he said.

He said Sutiyoso had instructed him to immediately implement the program.

"He (Sutiyoso) told me to start the program before the wet season comes, which will peak in January and February this year," he said.

Mango, rambutan, cassava, durian and star fruit are among varieties of fruit trees the administration will provide for free.

Meanwhile, City Parks Agency head Sarwo Handhayani said her agency would also take part in the drive by planting seed- producing trees in city parks.

"We will prioritize planting seed-producing trees at some of our big city parks, like National Monument Park (Monas) and Lapangan Banteng Park, to invite more birds to live there thanks to the food available there," Sarwo said.

The city administration hopes to reserve a total of 9,155.8 hectares, or 13.94 percent of Jakarta's area of 65,680 hectares, for open and green spaces by 2010 in its 2000-2010 master plan. Currently, there are 5,911 hectares of open and green spaces, or 9 percent of the capital's land area.

Environmentalists have repeatedly said that green areas should ideally comprise around 30 percent of the city's total area to help ease flooding and reduce air pollution.

They also criticized the administration's failure to maintain many green areas in the city, on which office buildings have been built.