Jakarta criticised for air pollution enforcement

The Indonesian capital Jakarta has come in for criticism from environmental groups who claim not enough is being done to keep air pollution in check.

Officials from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) visited the city recently and, while it wasn't all negative news, there remains a great deal of work to be done before air quality is up to scratch.

Indeed, those who visited the city found that quality of air has actually increased, but the main problem lies with the enforcement of the rules by those in charge and real movements forward will be difficult without this.

According to Walhi, many officials in the city are extremely lax when it comes to enforcing laws, specifically in terms of vehicle emissions control, which needs to be carried out every six months.

The authorities are also required to put city-wide car free days in place as well as providing 30 per cent of the city’s area to be made into green, open spaces.

However, despite the fact that car emissions contribute 70 per cent to air quality degradation, the organisation said that not enough was being done in terms of monitoring.

A report carried out in July by the Community for Leaded Gasoline Eradication showed that Jakarta has pockets of extremely high levels of pollution but Joni Tagor, head of the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency, has said that the city is doing what it can.

He told The Jakarta Post that the city had continued to monitor air quality with testing equipment in four areas.

"The agency is now building one more [monitoring equipment] set in the Kebon Jeruk area, West Jakarta, and is slated to start operating early next year," he said.

"The equipment is used to record air quality samples in the areas for us to study before deciding what to do.

"We keep studying data from the devices and checking the source of the pollution."