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Eco-town Development in Bandung, Indonesia

The City of Bandung is currently progressing towards a metropolitan city, and its vision is to become a clean, prosperous, assent, and friendly service city. Historically the city was initially founded by the Dutch in 1810 and now the city is growing as an industrial, cultural center, and also as a resort. With estimated population 2,290,000, the city’s area has increased more than 800% since the city was officially established in 1906. When it was establihed, the city had an area of about 1.922 Ha, and following the decree issued by the Indonesian Government in 1987 the City of Bandung had been enlarged to approximately 16.729,65 Ha. At present, the city’s area is administratively divided into 30 districts and 151 sub districts.

The rapid progress that has been taking place in the City of Bandung has resulted in diverse environmental issues. The existing environmental issues have different degree of complexity and scale, and none of the issue seems to be simple although in terms of scale some of the issues might be very local. In relation to the emergence of various environmental issues, awareness about such issues seems to differ among different parties. It is likely that increasing environmental awareness among NGOs is prominent, which can be indicated by, not only the increasing number of NGOs established in the last few years, but also by escalating action undertaken by NGOs residing in the City of Bandung.

Environmental awareness among general public (citizens) living in the City of Bandung appears to show a discrepancy depending on factor like individual’s socio-economic background (income, education), and access to information. Unfortunately, no quantitative study has been conducted with regard to interrelationship between environmental awareness and socio-economic conditions of the people. However, there has been encouraging development concerning citizens’ environmental awareness. Some indicators of this progress can be mentioned by the fact that there has been increasing number of environmental-related events initiated by the citizens of Bandung. Furthermore, strong support from communities upon various programmes imposed by the local government like tree planting, green space expansion, and river clean up is another indicator.

On the other hand, environmental awareness from the part of local government of Bandung is also to some extent promising indicated by stronger commitment to implement the concept of sustainable development despite considerable constraints faced by the government. The current government of Bandung has made clear point with regard to its commitment to better improve the environmental quality. This can be seen in the long-term (25 years period) and mid-term (5 years) development plans established by the City of Bandung. In the Bandung’s development plan, environmental-related programmes are manifested in one of the seven priority programmes, i.e., ‘Green and harmonious Bandung’. Whereas, there are other three priority programmes relevant with environmental-related issues, namely, ‘Bright Bandung’, ‘Healthy Bandung’, and ‘ Prosperous Bandung’.

The role of private sector in creating good environmental condition in Bandung cannot be ignored. Although there has been strong perception that companies and industries belong to this sector contribute considerably to environmental pollution and degradation in the City of Bandung. To date, there has been no adequate data and information concerning the needs of industrial sector operating in Bandung on technology and system that can make their production system more efficient and environmentally friendly. Yet, such data and information are very crucial to establish an integrated city waste management system that ultimately will lead to the establishment of recycle society in the City of Bandung.

Despite promising situation as described above, it should be pointed that increasing environmental awareness among different parties is divergent because of different interest. It seems that environmental awareness is more outstanding among some NGOs working in environmental and natural conservation issues, and also among particular group of citizens of Bandung. Nevertheless, the environmental awareness in the overall communities in general is still lacking due to several factors related to social, technological and system, and financial circumstances. Hitherto, measures to undertake sustainable development pathway will not be working as expected unless current environmental issues is properly managed and thorough concern is given by all relevant stakeholders to participate in coping environmental issues in Bandung.

Identification and characterization of the existing environmental issues in Bandung is an important initial step that need to be undertaken. This is followed by prioritization of issues that need to be coped, and then how strategy should be established so that all parties could contribute on the basis of mutual partnership. Not less important is the assessment of policy framework that endorses efforts to establish ‘Green and harmonious Bandung’. It is also necessary to determine and agree on the importance of an integrative factor that can be used as an option to solve the currently diverse and complex environmental problems in the City of Bandung. The concept of ecotown might be one of the alternatives to be proposed, and in relation to this, building a common understanding about the concept of ecotown and why this concept is potential to deal with complex environmental issues, especially those related to waste management in particular and environmental degradation in general.

Objectives

The objectives of the development of eco-town in Bandung are to understand and document the lessons learnt in setting-up and operation of eco-towns in Japan and other countries, and to develop working strategies and guidelines for the development of an eco-town in Bandung city, resulting in an eco-town policy framework.

The specific objectives of the project are:
• To document the lessons learnt in setting up of eco-towns in Japan and other countries and facilitate their adoption in Bandung, Indonesia.
• To raise awareness among key stakeholders in the industry, government and community sectors on environmentally friendly urban planning – within the overall concept of an eco-town.
• To facilitate collaborative networking among key stakeholders in Bandung city to implement activities related to the eco-towns.
• To promote the development of appropriate policies and programmes on eco-towns that aim to achieve a life-cycle economy