This year’s World Environment Day was a special one for many Jakarta residents, after many months of limited access to public parks due to COVID-19 restrictions in the city. At the newly reopened Tebet Eco Park in South Jakarta, about twenty thousand visitors basked in the Sunday morning fresh air and spent the day celebrating clean air initiatives during the World Environment Day Festival.
The Festival was the latest collaborative move between the Special Capital Region (DKI) Jakarta Provincial Government and Vital Strategies, which was started in 2019 with the launch of the Jakarta Clean Air Partnership (JCAP) program. Since then, Vital Strategies has been supporting the DKI Jakarta government through a number of initiatives, including the development of the Grand Design of Air Pollution Control (GDPPU), which would be the basis for plans to improve Jakarta’s air quality.
“We are honored to be a part of the impressive progress DKI Jakarta is making to gather evidence, conduct studies, and be transparent about the problem and the needed solutions,” said Daniel Kass, Vital Strategies’ Senior Vice President for Environmental, Climate and Urban Health, in his opening remark at the festival. “Today’s event is one effort to raise awareness on the importance of clean air in our daily lives and the importance of collaboration at every level: government, private sector, NGOs, and the public, to improve air quality in the great city of Jakarta,” he added.
The spirit of collaboration was in the air throughout the Festival, especially during the talk show which welcomed perspectives from the Jakarta Environment Agency, Vital Strategies, Institute of Transport and Development (ITDP), and community organization Nekropolis.
In the talk show, the Head of the Jakarta Environment Agency Asep Kuswanto pointed out that as the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta has developed into a busy urban city and center of economic activities. The hustle and bustle, however, produce various types of emissions that compromise the city’s air quality.
“This becomes everyone’s concern, so the government has started numerous initiatives to improve Jakarta’s air quality, such as developing the Grand Design of Air Pollution Control, which comprises policies and actions targeting different sources of pollution,” said Kuswanto, pointing out transportation as one of the main sources of pollution in the city.
Grand Design Pengendalian Pencemaran Udara (GDPPU) will consist of three main strategies to improve the governance of air pollution control and reduce emissions from both mobile and stationary sources. Kuswanto also added that the public could play the part even starting today, as he encouraged Jakarta residents to regularly take vehicle emission tests and make the shift to using public transportation modes as much as possible.
Taking place in a public park, the Festival became a shout-out to Jakarta’s ongoing collaborative efforts to encourage more people to spend more time outdoors, such as by improving air quality and developing more urban green spaces. Vital Strategies supports these efforts by gathering evidence and conducting studies to measure the city's health and economic impact of air pollution. This year, the support continues through the analysis of policy options and their impacts, the installation of new air monitors to better understand how air pollution varies across Jakarta, and using these systems to evaluate progress.
Meanwhile, for Jakarta residents like Ani, who took an electric motorcycle by ride-hailing app Gojek to the venue, the Festival was an opportunity to learn more about air pollution issues entertainingly. Not only she got to enjoy various eco-friendly exhibits at the collaborators’ booths, but she also spent the afternoon having a picnic in the park, accompanied by live music performances on stage.
Ani said, “It is nice to be out and about in the park again. We all get to enjoy the fresh morning breeze today, so I hope this makes people realize that keeping the air clean is everyone’s responsibility.”
The Festival was the latest collaborative move between the Special Capital Region (DKI) Jakarta Provincial Government and Vital Strategies, which was started in 2019 with the launch of the Jakarta Clean Air Partnership (JCAP) program. Since then, Vital Strategies has been supporting the DKI Jakarta government through a number of initiatives, including the development of the Grand Design of Air Pollution Control (GDPPU), which would be the basis for plans to improve Jakarta’s air quality.
“We are honored to be a part of the impressive progress DKI Jakarta is making to gather evidence, conduct studies, and be transparent about the problem and the needed solutions,” said Daniel Kass, Vital Strategies’ Senior Vice President for Environmental, Climate and Urban Health, in his opening remark at the festival. “Today’s event is one effort to raise awareness on the importance of clean air in our daily lives and the importance of collaboration at every level: government, private sector, NGOs, and the public, to improve air quality in the great city of Jakarta,” he added.
The spirit of collaboration was in the air throughout the Festival, especially during the talk show which welcomed perspectives from the Jakarta Environment Agency, Vital Strategies, Institute of Transport and Development (ITDP), and community organization Nekropolis.
In the talk show, the Head of the Jakarta Environment Agency Asep Kuswanto pointed out that as the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta has developed into a busy urban city and center of economic activities. The hustle and bustle, however, produce various types of emissions that compromise the city’s air quality.
“This becomes everyone’s concern, so the government has started numerous initiatives to improve Jakarta’s air quality, such as developing the Grand Design of Air Pollution Control, which comprises policies and actions targeting different sources of pollution,” said Kuswanto, pointing out transportation as one of the main sources of pollution in the city.
Grand Design Pengendalian Pencemaran Udara (GDPPU) will consist of three main strategies to improve the governance of air pollution control and reduce emissions from both mobile and stationary sources. Kuswanto also added that the public could play the part even starting today, as he encouraged Jakarta residents to regularly take vehicle emission tests and make the shift to using public transportation modes as much as possible.
Taking place in a public park, the Festival became a shout-out to Jakarta’s ongoing collaborative efforts to encourage more people to spend more time outdoors, such as by improving air quality and developing more urban green spaces. Vital Strategies supports these efforts by gathering evidence and conducting studies to measure the city's health and economic impact of air pollution. This year, the support continues through the analysis of policy options and their impacts, the installation of new air monitors to better understand how air pollution varies across Jakarta, and using these systems to evaluate progress.
Meanwhile, for Jakarta residents like Ani, who took an electric motorcycle by ride-hailing app Gojek to the venue, the Festival was an opportunity to learn more about air pollution issues entertainingly. Not only she got to enjoy various eco-friendly exhibits at the collaborators’ booths, but she also spent the afternoon having a picnic in the park, accompanied by live music performances on stage.
Ani said, “It is nice to be out and about in the park again. We all get to enjoy the fresh morning breeze today, so I hope this makes people realize that keeping the air clean is everyone’s responsibility.”
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