Indonesia and World Tourism News

Jakarta beats neighbors at cleanliness awards

It may be a shock to some readers, but Jakarta’s five municipalities have won the Adipura award, the country’s only environmental prize for the cleanest and greenest cities Wednesday.

But the dirtiest cities in the annual competition, which was organized by the State Ministry for the Environment, were Jakarta’s neighbors — Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi.

The capital’s main thoroughfare, Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta, won the urban facility category, judged to be the best street in the country.

In addition, the Jakarta administration received an award out of all the provinces for the best written annual report on the environment.

However, the capital failed to receive the Adiwiyata award for clean schools, which was awarded to a state elementary school in Sukabumi, West Java.

The trophy for Adipura winners was handed over by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday, while the winners of Adiwiyata award and the environmental report award were announced by environment minister Rachmat Witoelar at the Hotel Sahid.

Rachmat said Jakarta’s success could set a good example for the environmental efforts of the city’s neighbors.

“Neighboring cities need to learn about how Jakarta treats its environment,” he said.

Jakarta has long accused neighboring cities of damaging its environment. This is despite the fact that Jakarta dumps more than 6,000 tons of garbage in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, every day.

Rachmat said the scoring system for the Adipura awards had been tightened after more administrations joined the program.

“There are now 362 cities … joining this year’s Adipura awards, compared to only 59 cities in 2002,” he said.

The award looks at factors such as waste management and green areas to determine the winners.

The Adipura award requires administrations to promote composting efforts in areas such as schools, traditional markets, hotels, terminals and restaurants.

Mohammad Helmy, one of the Adipura judges and the ministry’s deputy assistant for small scale enterprises and domestic waste pollution control, said Jakarta had done the best job of treating the organic waste.

“We’ve also seen the Jakarta administration’s seriousness about increasing green and open spaces, for example by converting Menteng park into some of the city’s green space,” he said.

The city currently has only 5,911 hectares of green space, around 9 percent of the capital’s total land area. This is far less than 30 percent stipulated by the Spatial Planning Law.

The administration is aiming for 9,156 hectares, or around 13.94 percent of Jakarta’s area, as green space by 2010.

Governor Sutiyoso handed the Adipura awards to each of Jakarta’s mayors before launching a victory parade through the capital.

“This is a great achievement and I am thankful to all the mayors who succeeding in leading their people to a live a clean life,” said Sutiyoso said.

Jakarta’s municipalities, with the exception of East Jakarta, also received the award last year.

“This is a precious gift, but I am not satisfied until all the rivers flowing through Jakarta are clean,” said Sutiyoso, whose term will end in October.

“We have to maintain our cleanliness so the awards won’t go to other cities.”

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Add comment June 15th, 2007

West Sumba teacher takes home Kalpataru award

Like Sysiphus of Greek mythology, who relentlessly carries a rock uphill, West Sumba native Elan Wukak Victor has for years carried out a similarly endless task, growing trees on rocks.

The 63-year-old English teacher started by encouraging his pupils to grow trees in their schoolyard, an idea he took from school to school.

And after 30 years, Elan has planted 400,000 trees, distributed 100,000 seeds to 23 green community groups he helped set up as well as built 81 water reservoirs across Waikabubak, a barren, hilly village in West Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara.

Elan’s hard work paid off on Wednesday, when he, along with 11 other environmental activists, was awarded a Kalpataru, the highest award for environmentalists in Indonesia.

Elan won in environmental conservation pioneer category, together with Amandus Kaize from Merauke, Papua, and village head Slamet Tugiyanto from Magelang, Central Java.

Kaize was honored for his efforts to grow a rare variety of plants in a protected forest controlled by his tribal community, while Slamet won for promoting multiple crops among local farmers.

One notable figure who also won the award was former West Java governor Solichin Gautama Purwanegara, for his campaign against illegal logging and on the regreening of community-controlled forests in nine regencies in West Java.

Apart from the Kalpataru awards given to environmental activists, the government has handed out Adipura awards to cities that strive to promote cleanliness.

This year, the government gave the awards to 84 cities throughout the country. More than 300 cities were nominated for the Adipura awards this year.

All five municipalities in Jakarta won Kalpatarus in the category of metropolitan city. Other cities in the category which won Kalpataru are Palembang in South Sumatra and Surabaya in East Java.

Jakarta’s gain, however, was at the loss of other cities in the greater Jakarta area such as Bekasi, Bogor and Tangerang. None of these cities won Adipura in this year’s contest.

Other cities which also won Adipura include Padang (West Sumatra), Yogyakarta, Denpasar (Bali), Malang (East Java) and Pekanbaru (Riau).

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his speech before presenting the two awards that the Indonesian people did not have to wait for people in other countries to save the environment.

“Let us save the earth together with other people in this world,” Yudhoyono said.

The President also called on local governments to take environmental protection into account when making policy.

He also reiterated his statement about the need to prepare for global warming’s fallout.

Yudhoyono said that global warming would have a disastrous impact on Indonesia as an archipelagic country, as the rising of sea levels would drown many of the country’s small islands.

“The time is high for us to find a breakthrough and brace for global warming,” he said.

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Add comment June 15th, 2007