Kampung goes green to evade eviction

In this photograph taken on January 31, 2017, residents chat in front of their home in the Tongkol kampung in Jakarta.Brightly coloured brick and wooden houses line a clean riverside path amid trees and vegetable gardens, a tranquil scene in the normally chaotic Indonesian capital Jakarta. Residents have transformed the kampung, as traditional neighbourhoods are known in Indonesia, into a model of clean and green living in an effort to fight off the threat of eviction. / AFP PHOTO / Bay ISMOYO / TO GO WITH Indonesia-environment-waste, FEATURE by Megan SUTHERLAND

Jakarta: Brightly coloured wooden and brick houses line a clean riverside path amid trees and vegetable gardens, a tranquil scene in the normally chaotic Indonesian capital Jakarta.

Residents have transformed the kampung, as traditional neighbourhoods are known in Indonesia, into a model of clean and green living in an effort to fight off the threat of eviction. Kampung Tongkol was once much like many other down-at-heel riverside communities found across the overcrowded, traffic-choked metropolis of 10 million, blighted by dilapidated housing and strewn with rubbish.