Eco-industrial development for Aceh

Eco-industrial development for Aceh

Erita Narhetali, Jakarta

Several initiatives have been declared to implement
sustainable development in the rehabilitation and reconstruction
of post-tsunami Aceh, including to the plan to design Aceh as a
green province with 40 percent of its area to be protected as
limited utilization areas. The usage of local materials in
building houses has also been encouraged.

However, we must be careful in our of the use the term "green"
so as not to narrow our understanding of sustainable development
to merely mean saving trees.

Essentially, sustainable development is about creating and
assisting a new lifestyle and mindset that fully understands
communities as living systems embedded in natural systems. It
therefore requires working on solutions with a multisectoral
approach such as energy, industry, materials, consumption, design
and communities. As a result, improvement in the quality of human
life is achieved in harmony with improving and maintaining the
health of ecological systems; and where a healthy economy's
industrial base supports the quality of both human and ecological
systems.

Sustainable materials, in terms of not using illegally logged
timber, are indeed important. Yet, this approach does nothing to
address the critical question of how to make more efficient use
of limited resources in the context of a growing population, high
demand and tightened economic situations.

One of the most promising strategies for sustainable
development is known as Industrial Ecology, which provides a
conceptual framework and an important tool for the planning of
economic development, particularly at the regional level.
Combining conceptual frameworks with a practical approach to
sustainability, it represents one path to provide real solutions
to the question -- "How can the concept of sustainable
development be made operational in an economically feasible way?"

As a relatively new field of research that is rapidly emerging
on a global scale, industrial ecology focuses on the sustainable
co-existence of the environment, technology and society.
Processes in nature, where cycles are closed and waste from one
process is input for another, are models for socio-technological
processes. Frosch and Gallopoulos (1989) first introduced the
term Industrial Ecology together with the concept of Industrial
Ecosystems, referring to the design of production sites in
analogy to natural ecosystems. By taking lessons from nature,
where waste from one process is raw material for another and
cycles are closed, society may develop towards sustainability.

It is also important to highlight that the word "industrial",
in the context of industrial ecology, refers to all human
activities occurring within a modern technological society. Thus
fisheries, housing, medical services, transportation,
agriculture, etc., are all a part of the industrial system.

The rehabilitation and reconstruction phase in Aceh provides
us with a huge opportunity to model sustainable development using
an industrial ecology approach. Public planners and local
officials now face a number of pressures in planning for economic
growth and managing local environmental issues especially after
the tsunami.

Such developments must be socially just, economically fair,
and ecologically healthy, while also enabling the recovery of
physical, psychological and social systems. Meanwhile, aid has to
be given to support sectoral developments like housing, health
services, and education, as a matter of urgency.

As consequence, revising local and regional spatial plans
should reckon ongoing activities relative to the environmental,
social and economic capacity of local people. Poor planning will
reduce potential land use, or interfere with urban activity or
important natural ecosystem biodiversity. This is where the bulk
of industrial ecology design should take place.

Applying industrial ecology to the development at the local
level implies looking at activities from a life-cycle perspective
-- from cradle-to-grave, including energy and materials at the
location but also in a wider perspective.

Let say, for example, we are going to design a system of
sustainable fisheries. There are materials needed to build boats,
but these materials are made in industrial processes which also
require energy. So the nature of the boats and scale of industry
determine the life-cycle impacts of the fishery system and its
infrastructure and there is a need to look for more sustainable
materials.

An alternative for fueling fishery boats could perhaps be
biofuel. Bio-diesel can be made from plants - vegetable oils, or
sugar, that will also open an alternative local agricultural
opportunities. It also fits into the scale and support for local
energy self-sufficiency.

In closing cycles and waste streams, it is worth processing
fishery waste to be used as feed for local fish ponds, or in
shrimp farms. The by-products could also serve as fertilizer,
while waste water from the industry could be purified in a small
local waste water treatment plant, together with household
organic waste.

Management of these activities would be chain management.
Closing cycles, re-using waste streams or looking at waste as a
resource, sharing facilities and infrastructure belong to the
most important of industrial ecology principles.

Where, for example, there are several different industrial
activities in the same area (for example, coal mining, fisheries,
power plants, and housing altogether in a city), the development
of an eco-industrial park (EIP) is strongly recommended.

The most acknowledged model of an eco-industrial park is the
Danish coastal city of Kalundborg. In this city, the main
industries and the local government turn by-products into raw
materials by trading and making use of their waste streams and
energy resources. Kalundborg community and other similar cases
developed entirely through market forces.

In dealing with the energy crisis, industrial ecology strategy
goes further than just cutting consumption or applying an end-of-
pipe approach. It supports eco-efficiency because a regional
circular economy is encouraged. Therefore, the objectives of
sustainable development are more feasible to achieve. Public
planners and policymakers would be well to examine these concepts
for application in post-tsunami Aceh so that the available aid
used optimally.

The writer is a member of Kolaborasi Nurani. She can be
reached at melati747@yahoo.com.