Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – A leading environmental group has urged the Jakarta administration to stop converting green areas into industrial and residential zones to help prevent further environmental damage.

The Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said the conversion should be halted, at least until the administration could maintain 9,544 hectares of green and open space in the city, or 13.94 percent of city land.

"The Jakarta administration must put a stop to the conversion of green space to meet the Home Ministry directives on green space," Hasbi Azis, Walhi's head of research and policy analysis, said Friday.

He was referring to the 1998 ministerial guidelines stipulating that each city should allocate between 40 and 60 percent of its land as green space. Only 5,911 hectares of the city's 60,000 hectares is green space at present.

Walhi said converting green space was the easiest way for the administration to increase revenue collection as it was not in the habit of compensating residents for their land.

On Thursday, Walhi delivered its guidance paper for the ongoing revision of the Jakarta Spatial Plan. Among the recommendations is the need to set up a management body to monitor green space. Jakarta currently applies a 1999 city ordinance on the Jakarta Spatial Plan for 2010.

Hasbi said Jakarta lagged far behind other countries in terms of green space.

The ratio of residents to green space is five square meters per person in Japan, two square meters in Malaysia and between seven and 11 square meters in London.

"The city has fewer square meters of public space per person at .55 square meters. Ideally, it would be five square meters. f Jakarta's population reaches 12.5 million by 2010, it will need at least 18,750 hectares of green space, far higher than the administration target of 9,544 hectares," he said.

Currently, Jakarta's population swells to 12 million during the day, when commuters from surrounding towns make their way into the city. Some 8.7 million people actually live within the city limits. Each year, about 350,000 newcomers move in from other regions.

Yayat Supriatna, an urban planner from Trisakti University, said Jakarta lost about 90 hectares of green space every year due to rapid population growth and infrastructure development in the city.

"Reliable data from the Jakarta administration shows Jakarta lost more than 450 hectares of green space in the period between 2000 and 2004," he said.

He said many of the buildings located in designated green areas were legal because developers had obtained construction permits from the administration.

Yayat said the administration needed to stop giving developers permits to build shopping centers.

"The administration only makes green space available to developers." The administration earlier said Jakarta still needed dozens of shopping malls to cater to its growing population.