Indonesian ministries join hands to clear up Ciliwung river

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 2 Mar 09;

Four government ministries on Monday said they were joining hands to rehabilitate the upstream areas of the Ciliwung River that flows through the capital and has been blamed as a major source for the perennial flooding in Jakarta.

Four ministers — for the environment, forestry, public works and agriculture — have launched an integrated program to recover the quality of water in the catchment areas of the Ciliwung in Tugu Utara in the Cisarua subdistrict of West Java Province.

The bursting banks of the Ciliwung during the rainy season — bringing widespread annual floods to Jakarta — have been blamed on the increasingly denuded upstream water catchment area and by the mostly illegal buildings going up along the river.

“Programs to rehabilitate Ciliwung were started in 2006, but the condition of the river turned out to be so severe that an integrated program was necessary to deal with the problems,” said Masnellyarti Hilman, an environment ministry deputy for environmental damage control.

She said that in 2000, the effective green coverage of the Ciliwung water catchment area only stood at 4,918 hectares or just 9.43 percent of the total, and in 2008, the coverage had already drastically gone down to just 2.42 percent, or 1,265 hectares.

Masnellyarti also said that planting was the easy part.

West Java Deputy Governor Dede Yusuf agreed, saying: “We’ve planted 40 million trees but only 50 percent have survived. There is a need for clear law enforcement on maintaining the trees planted.”

Dede also hoped that interest in preserving the Ciliwung water catchment areas was not just because of its effects on Jakarta. “Environmental problems are not limited to the Ciliwung, but also concern the Cisadane or Ciapus Rivers,” he said referring to two other main waterways in West Java.

Dede also hoped that the government could put in place a system of incentives and disincentives for the upstream areas in efforts to prevent flooding in the downstream areas, such as rewarding people for planting trees or penalizing them for building without permits.

Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said the government already had a regulation on zoning, which provided for incentives and disincentives. “But the regional administration should give further details of the programs that needed to be implemented,” he said.

Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban said the most important issue was the synchronization of policies at central and regional levels in the upstream areas.