Agus Supriono, Creator of renowned Kampung Iklim Merbabu Asih
The
sun shines brightly, welcoming us to famously called “shrimp city”, Cirebon.
Located on the upper part of West-Java, bounded by the sea has made city’s
temperature quite high. Cirebon is said to be one of the pronest city to
drought. In 2015 nearly 14.000 ha ricefield had experienced drought. However, when
it starts to rain some parts of the city are also vulnerable to flood. Therefore,
environmentally concious planning should be done to overcome these challenges.
A neighborhood located in central area of Cirebon city had applied
environmentally concious management planning since 2008.
Kampung Iklim Merbabu Asih
is a renowned eco-friendly neighborhood located in the central city area. The initiator,
Agus Supriono is neither a climate change experts, nor environment expertise. He
was a former engineer who initiated eco-friendly neighborhood project in 2008.
He said, garbage heap that caused by city’s festival had repeatedly happened in
his neighborhood. “Those filthy garbage heap could increase flood risking our
neighborhood.”he added “We don't expect government to solve all our
problems. That was why we started the solid-waste management project”
Fortunately, his idea received positive responses from other residents. “They
actively involved on every project, we have been working to create this eco-friendly
neighborhood together.”
Agus Supriono started by managing organic waste, together with other residents;
he turned organic waste into organic fertilizer (compost). He used empty paint
cans as composter. “We started only with two-used paint cans.” Residents use
the compost for planting at their house. Nowadays, the waste management project
has expanded to non-organic waste. Women around the neighborhood produce handicraft
from non-organic waste (e.g. plastic bottle, paper, and plastic bag.) and sell
it at their own showroom.
Kampung Iklim Merbabu
Asih also has their trash to cash project. Agus Supriono encourages residents to save money by trading their trash here. Trash to cash
project uses the waste to regenerate fibers that will be recycled.
Youth and children also actively participate in this recycling
process. “They paint this paper-box craft” Agus Supriono showed us the
sell-products.
Agus Supriono desire to maintain eco-friendly neighborhood have attracted
private sectors to conduct corporate social responsibility (CSR) at Kampung Iklim Merbabu Asih. Agus Supriono revealed some collaboration between them and private sectors (e.g. trash to
cash, park, pavement). Not only private sectors, the neighborhood also gains
attention from government and academia. Moreover, foreign tourists who come to
Cirebon also often visit the famous eco-friendly neighborhood, Kampung Iklim Merbabu Asih.
Indeed, it needs strong passion and determinism to create sustained
eco-friendly neighborhood. ”I had managed this eco-village for around 8 years,
of course it needs time to make all residents understood and started to apply
eco-value into daily practice.”Agus Supriono added, they are currently trying
biopores methods to increase land absorbing in the neighborhood. Biopores are installed
on sloppy areas to prevent flood occur. “We started to initiate collaboration
with Cirebon City Government to build infiltration wells.”Besides that, Agus
Supriono also installs rainwater-harvesting system to prevent drought that
possibly happened in their neighborhood.
Agus Supriono hopes there will be more people who care about environment. Agus
Supriono hopes environment issues will gain more attention in the future, and
people will start to take action. He then continued, “I am an engineer, I don’t
know about climate change at all. Yet, I just want to see my grand children play
outside happily. Thus we need to save the environment as soon as possible, by
lead an environment conscious planning.”
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