Mr. Hidayat Syah outlined Surabaya’s many and innovative city greening campaigns, and his action plan to increase public participation.

1. The City

With a population of just over 3 million people, Surabaya is Indonesia’s second largest city, covering an area of 326km², and is the main seaport and commercial center of the country’s eastern region.

The city has shown that the key to a clean environment is political commitment, which in turn brings about public support and participation. A five-phase mission statement has been formulated as part of the mid-term municipality development plans for 2006-2010, which promotes clean healthy, green and comfortable environs within a development agenda prioritizing the city’s ecosystem.

One area of this project is the provision of greenbelts and municipal gardens. Green areas are being expanded, and trees and gardens planted on open land to improve the microclimate and ground water absorption, as well as the aesthetics of the city. The aim is for the 263 hectares of green area to be increased to 280 hectares by 2010.

In terms of cleanliness, the city government takes the novel approach of making citizens see the economic value of garbage. As domestic waste is largely made up of kitchen waste (55.6%), composting activities are being encouraged, and community and commercial groups are offered involvement in waste disposal. This is expected to have an immediate impact on the volume of garbage produced by the city. The amount of incoming waste to the final disposal phase has already been reduced from 1600 tons per day in 2006 to 1480 tons per day in 2007.

Problems the city faces are a lack of awareness of appropriate disposal of garbage – much is discarded in rivers, at the edge of streets etc.; and the amount of packaging produced which cannot be reused, recycled or reduced.

However, the community focus on waste management awareness is decreasing the amount of garbage at source, and the promotion of compost production is making for a greener city. Garbage recycling has become a source of income for scavengers, and local university technical assistance and NGO involvement in environment management is also increasing.

Government selected ‘Cadres’ are also positioned in each community to monitor the area where they live, so as to promote competitive and informed greening and waste management by the community members themselves. A total of 3844 cadres are working throughout the city, and they are paid on a merit basis, depending on the achievement of set targets for their communities’ greening and appropriate waste disposal.&

Future plans aim to further increase composting activities. Numbering 4,100, ‘Takakura’ organic waste baskets (named after a professor from Kita-Kyushu, Japan) have been distributed around the city, and programs for schoolchildren are increasing. Currently some 15 tons of compost are produced per day, each kilo being sold for around one and a half dollars. Pilot projects for independent waste management activities are being carried out, as increased community participation in environment improvement activities is a key aim for the city’s cleanliness and gardens department. 

2. The Proposed Action Plan

Despite annual inter-district competitions already underway in cleanliness and greening activities, full public participation is still lacking. The goal of Mr. Hidayat’s action plan is to increase community participation in the competitions by creating 3 specific programs in 1) drainage cleanliness; 2) development of green areas; and 3) waste composting.

All of the city’s 31 districts will initially take part, and will be gradually short-listed to 10, and then 3 districts. Competitive participation will be encouraged by the media and citizens, and the competitions will be judged by the local university, NGOs and the City Government. Recognition of the most successfully greened districts will be through the awarding of the ‘Mayor Challenge Trophy’.

  Not only will this lead to a cleaner environment, but it will also increase sustained awareness and participation of citizens throughout the city, creating a more informed, active and environmentally aware community.

Surabaya Action Plan Time Frame: June 2008 - January 2009

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