Following two weeks of observations, judges awarded Manggar Park in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta, Kelapa Cengkir Park in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, and Polri Ragunan Complex in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, as winners in the community park category.

The parks, built by the administration but managed by local residents, were in one of the nine competition categories.

"For this category, we highlighted the function of the parks. For example, residents make best use of Manggar Park to exercise, hold community meetings or to sit and read," one of the judges, Hengki T. Heksanto from the Indonesian Landscape Architect Association (IALI), said.

Other criteria for this category include location in densely populated areas and the level of mutual assistance among residents to run the parks.

"If only we had around 1,000 interactive parks in the city, people wouldn't need to visit malls for recreation," he said.

Hengki said city residents were increasingly aware of the importance of protecting their environment despite the difficulty in getting open spaces.

"The participants in the home garden category, who were mostly lower- to middle-income people, tried to make best use of limited spaces in their houses to grow plants in painted pots or make *so-called* biopores. We really need to applaud these efforts," he said.

The home gardens of Gatot Rahmadi in Tebet, South Jakarta, Matsani in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta, and Santiadji in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, won this category.

The park and greenery competition is growing in importance due to efforts by the city to increase green areas despite the myriad of difficulties.

Currently, the city has only 66,000 hectares of green spaces, or 9.6 percent of its total area, while the 2007 zoning bylaw stipulates a minimum of 13.9 percent.

First held in 1967 under then governor Ali Sadikin, the competition was initially aimed at getting residents to participate in making the city green.

At the time, there were only two categories in competition: home gardens and office parks.

With nine categories this year, the competition drew 200 participants from all five municipalities in each category, and singled out 45 participants for the final.

Last year, the agency had 10 categories in the competition with 50 participants in the final.

"Every year we change the categories and criteria to attract more participants," judging panel leader Aloysius Susanto said, but the competition continued to preserve its two traditional categories.

Aloysius said the competition was warmly received by residents despite the dearth of prizes from the administration. Each winner receives a trophy, certificate and gardening tools.

"The quality and variety of plants has also increased over the years," said Aloysius, who is also a former deputy head of the parks agency.

He said residents did not always take the initiative to register, but that sometimes agency officials spotted their beautiful lawns and parks. (lnd)

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