Walhi criticizes city's greening program
Walhi criticizes city's greening program
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) has
criticized the municipality's plan to green Jakarta, especially
by setting free a group of birds, as having no significant
beneficial impact on the environment.
"I think setting free a group of birds will not help improve
the quality of the city's environment," Chalid Muhammad, head of
Walhi's civic education program, said Monday.
Chalid responded to Governor Sutiyoso's setting free of 500
birds Monday to help improve the city's environment despite the
fact that Jakarta has a limited number of trees for the birds to
live.
Instead of flying high, many of the birds were just eventually
captured by people.
"I hope I can fulfill my ambition to green Jakarta in my term
as governor," Sutiyoso said at the ceremony in the Cengkareng
low-cost apartment complex in West Jakarta.
Chalid said, "It's ironic that the governor set free birds
while in fact people like to steal them and put them in cages.
The habit of poaching birds -- that's what the municipality has
to abolish.
"It will be useless to set free thousands of birds if the
mentality (regarding poaching) is not changed," he added.
He said that if the municipality wished to start an
environmental campaign in the city, they had to develop an
effective environmental policy, consistently implement the
regulations and seek voluntary public participation.
"For instance, once a policy is adopted, don't make its
implementation only a lip service. The officials have to mean
what they say.
"The clean river program, for example, is good. But in its
implementation the municipality chose the wrong approach. They
evicted all the people living along the river banks, as if they
were the cause of the water pollution. That's wrong," he said.
He claimed that it was eco-fascism, meaning that in attempting
to create a healthy environment, many sacrifices were imposed on
segments of society.
"The municipality should check into who is responsible for
water pollution. Don't blame little people as if they were the
cause of the pollution."
He also said the city also has to be consistent in applying
the rules.
"The municipality is too lenient in enforcing the law. The
cases of missing islands in the Thousand Islands, or the
disappearance of mangrove forests are just a few examples of how
reckless and lenient the city is in enforcing the rules," he
added.
Among the birds freed by Sutiyoso, who is also the chairman of
the Jakarta Bird Lovers Association, were turtledoves, bulbuls
and nightingales.
Sutiyoso earlier freed some 2,000 birds from 10 species at
National Monument (Monas) Park, in Central Jakarta.
He said a city as big as Jakarta must be developed into a
green city to fight increasing pollution problems. (07)