Turning Jakarta into green city

Debbie A. Lubis, Contributor, Jakarta

World Environment Day, marked each year on June 5, is one of the important events organized annually by the United Nations to promote worldwide awareness of the environment and increase political attention and action to cope with environmental problems.

The theme of this year's World Environment Day is "Green Cities -- Plan for the Planet" and is quite apt for Indonesia, where most cities are overcrowded, heavily polluted and lacking in public facilities, proper sanitation and green spaces.

While the worldwide celebration is centered on San Francisco, the U.S., Indonesia is also holding an environment week to mark this important day.

Held at the Jakarta Convention Hall, the four-day event features a series of environment-related activities such as seminars on environmental issues and an environmental exhibition.

Environment week, which was officially launched on June 2 by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, will also involve the presentation of the Adipura awards, the country's highest mark of recognition for cities that have made significant achievements in preserving the environment.

Although the event is held annually, the political impact to date has been insignificant. Vice President Kalla admits that the presentation of the annual Adipura awards has not really encouraged city administrations to pay serious attention to environmental issues.

"Besides rewards, there should also be sanctions for those who pay no attention to environmental issues," he said in his speech marking the opening of environmental week. "Concrete action has to be taken to cope with environmental problems if we want to preserve the environment for future generations," he added.

Creating healthy urban environments is the country's most challenging problem. Rapid urbanization and increasing concentration of trade and services has made most of the country's cities not only crowded but also heavily polluted.

The problem has been getting worse because many areas that had been designated as water catchment areas, forests and public parks have been converted into housing complexes or shopping centers.

Jakarta is a good example of how Indonesian cities are being mismanaged. The increasing number of motorcycles, and private and public vehicles has degraded the air quality in the city, which has more than 10 million inhabitants. The lack of public waste disposal areas and proper sanitary facilities has also caused problems as regards water sources

At present, there are at least five million vehicles in Jakarta, about three million of which are motorcycles. The sharp increase in the sales of both new cars and motorcycles will further increase pollution.

Vehicular emissions account for 70 percent of the city's pollution, while the remainder comes from industrial emissions.

According to the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency, the ambient air quality in Jakarta based on the Air Pollution Standard Index showed a slight improvement last year.

The agency reported recently that people in Jakarta enjoyed a total of 53 days out of 365 days in 2004, or about 15.5 percent, with good air quality, meaning that the air did not adversely impact on human beings. This data indicates an improvement from 25.55 days, or seven percent, in 2003, but it still much lower than 108 days, or about 30 percent, in 2000. By way of comparison, Singaporeans enjoyed good quality air during all of 2004.

The agency also reported that most rivers in Jakarta were heavily contaminated by harmful agents, such as detergents, coliform, and fecal coli.

Creating green spaces in the city and preserving water catchment areas are the main priorities of the Jakarta administration in its attempts to improve the quality of the air and ground water.

Through Local Regulation No. 6/1999, the Jakarta administration has, for example, set a target of allocating 13.94 percent of the city's area as green spaces by 2010. Currently, the figure stands at 9 percent. However, many of the areas that are designated as green areas have in fact been illegally occupied by residents or traders.

"It's not easy to maintain the level of green spaces as we do not have special squad to enforce the regulations. Many areas that are supposed to be green spaces are occupied by traders selling plants or food," said Nana Suharna, the head of the Open Space and Water Use Management Section of the Jakarta city administration.

As many of the city's green areas have been paved over or built upon, the Jakarta administration now requires housing developers as well as business centers to provide green spaces in their developments.

In addition, the city has also developed a number of public parks in slum areas, mostly in central, west and north Jakarta. The parks serve as playground for the children of poor families or places where local people can congregate.

The size of the parks averages between 200 square meters and 700 square meters, and most of them have been developed over the past four years.

Currently, the city is in the process of rehabilitating Banteng square and the Persija soccer field in Menteng as urban parks.

Governor Sutiyoso has ordered his subordinates to establish urban forests in the five municipalities of Jakarta and transform some dams and lakes into tourist attractions.

The city also plans to rehabilitate the lakes in south and east Jakarta and restore their functions as water catchment areas, while the lakes and dams in west and north Jakarta will serve as flood control centers.

The city administration has acquired a 165-hectare site in South Jakarta and excavated a 32-hectare lake there. The place, called Situ Babakan, is intended to serve as an integrated recreational site that preserves Betawi culture and provides fishing facilities and agro-tourism attractions.

The 32-hectare Srengseng reservoir in West Jakarta, Rio-Rio reservoir in East Jakarta and the Sunter 1 reservoir in North Jakarta are also in the process of being transformed into recreational sites. Areas around the reservoirs will converted into urban forests.

Although the idea of Jakarta as a green city is nothing more than a distant dream at this stage, providing more green areas in the overcrowded city will certainly help improve air quality.