Environment.web.id

From The Jakarta Post

Despite recent criticism about severe land and water pollution, Bali has the best environment of all of the provinces, a government study shows.

The report on Indonesia’s environmental quality index in 2010 conducted by the Environment Ministry showed that Bali had a score of 99.65, the highest of all the 33 provinces.

The score takes into account the level of total suspended solids (TSS), dissolved oxygen (DO) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) — common parameters to measure water quality.

The province ranked third in the ministry’s previous review.

“Changes in the index for every region is determined by the amount of polluting substances and water volumes of its rivers,” said the report, officially launched last week.

The parameters also explain whether the water in the area could be utilized for drinking water or for other purposes such as irrigation, aquaculture, farming or water recreation.

International media have reported that Bali is no longer the “Island of Gods”, citing heavy polution.

Time magazine reported that Bali was a dirty and unsafe tourism destination.

“Rivers swell and flush their trash and frothing human waste into the sea off Kuta Beach, the island’s most famous tourist attraction, where bacteria bloom and the water turns muddy with dead plankton,” the report said.

It listed tap water shortages, blackouts, uncollected trash, overflowing sewage, traffic congestion and crime as major problems on the island.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry, however, has denied the accusations of poor management and tourist overload in the province.

The Bali administration has set a target of creating 130,686 hectares of green space on the island, which is 5,780 square kilometers in area.

The environment report, which was released for the second time this year, showed that Jakarta was the worst performer.

The nation’s capital, which is also the most densely populated region in the country with an average of 14,460 inhabitants per square kilometer, maintained its spot at the bottom of the list with a score of 41.81.

Of its total area of 664 square kilometers, Jakarta has only 571 hectares of green space, compared to Bali’s 176,547 hectares.

A recent survey conducted by the Clean Air Initiative (CAI) concluded that Jakarta was one of the cleanest cities in terms of air pollution, along with Bangkok, Hanoi, Jinan and Manila.

Deputy minister for environmental communications and people empowerment affairs Henry Bastaman said that 19 provinces scored higher than the national average on the environmental quality index.

The report showed that Sulawesi was the cleanest island, and that Java was the least clean.

“This proves that the environmental quality of Java is still the worst compared to other islands,” the report said.

The ministry has said it wants the environmental quality index report to be used as the basis for the argument that development programs should be focused outside of Java, as Java is too densely populated and burdened by manufacturing.

Infrastructure development in the country is also largely focused on Java.

A senior ranking administration official conceded Saturday that a large majority of trash on the resort island was left uncollected.

The island generates up to 20,000 cubic meters of trash daily and 75 percent is left uncollected on the roadside and at illegal dumps, posing a mounting problem and health hazard to the surrounding
community.

“On a daily basis around 15,000 cubic meters of trash does not end up in the official government-owned final garbage dump facility. Instead, trash is strewn along the roadsides, alleys and at illegal waste disposal sites,” provincial environmental agency head Alit Sastrawan said.

The garbage agency’s lack of sufficient human resources and equipment was one reason behind this chronic trash problem. Yet, Sastrawan also blamed the public’s low awareness on good trash management as an aggravating factor.

“A large number of people still think they can dump their trash anywhere,” he said.

He added that trash had become one of the most crucial problems in Bali.

“Trash has disturbed our social and spiritual life, and it has also impacted on our economic sources, the tourism industry in particular,” Sastrawan said.

He cited Andrew Marshall’s story “Holiday in Hell: Bali’s Ongoing Woes”, published in Time magazine in early April, as an example of the negative effects poor trash management inflicts on Bali.

The story portrayed Bali as a place that is gradually losing its charm as a friendly and desired holiday destination due to scores of problems the administration and the Balinese have yet to address effectively.

Trash, traffic jams and crimes were mentioned in the story as the island’s pressing problems.

Sastrawan said that Bali would follow the steps taken by the Singaporean administration in dealing with the trash problem. One of those steps was stronger law enforcement.

“The provincial administration has finished drafting a bylaw on trash and has submitted the proposed bylaw to the provincial legislative council. The council is currently still deliberating the bylaw,” he said.

Once the council passes the bylaw, the administration will have legal ground to take firmer action against individuals who discard their trash in careless ways or at illegal sites.

The administration is also to construct a high-end waste disposal facility to replace the current landfill at Suwung in South Denpasar.

Suwung landfill’s outdated technology and limited capacity cannot cope with the rising amount of garbage from the island’s four regions.