HOW THE ECO VILLAGE CONCEPT WORKS :

The idea of using ecologically-friendly means to make coastal villages more safe is not just utopian thinking by some dreamy architects and environmentalists. Studies have shown that in areas of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India that were protected by mangroves, coastal forests, coral reefs and other natural barriers, damage from the tsunami was much less.

A key aspect of the argument for rebuilding in-situ is that the villagers themselves can be the prime movers in a process of restoring - and expanding - such natural defenses along Banda Aceh's vulnerable coastline.The reconstruction project being undertaken by the Udeep Beusaree network is showing how these 25 villages can be made more safe by creating layers of green buffers between the sea and settlements. Besides

Juggling the dissonant issues of private land ownership and collective village planning . . .

helping stabilize and fortify the coastal environment, these green buffer zones also create wind-breaks,provide flood control, channel drainage andstorm run-off, while they provide environments for agriculture, aquaculture and animal-rearing, to supplement incomes and make these communities more self-sustaining. The eco-village concept is not a fixed rule-book but a set of many elements which people can put together in a variety of ways as they draft redevelopment plans to suit the particular geographic and social realities in their villages. All 25 villages in the network are firmly committed to incorporating eco-village planning into their reconstruction process, thus creating a continuous protective strip along this worst-hit part of Banda Aceh with some of the following features:
Natural and built buffers : Natural barriers such as mangrove forests, coconut and pine plantations and rice fields are being planted to absorb the force of waves, winds and storms and provide numerous and varied protective layers between the sea and the settlements. Built barriers such as dikes, ditches, roads (lined with still more trees), canals and fisheries ponds will also be incorporated to add more protective layers.
Escape routes and escape hills : Each village is planning special escape pathways and evacuation centers in the nearest hills or high-ground, so everyone knows which way to run in the event of another tsunami. Lam Tengoh village's new escape route, for example, has already been tested. When another 8.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Aceh in early April, the villagers proudly reported that it took only a few minutes to evacuate the entire village.
Sustainable village development : Villagers are also exploring new ways of making their communities more ecologically healthy, more self-sufficient and more in harmony with the environment by using such things as local building materials, recycling, organic waste-water treatment, kitchen gardening, biogas digesting and non-polluting alternative energy.
Holistic community revival : The people's plans also include fostering some less tangible aspects of community revival such as participation, trust, mutual help, sharing of resources, caring for those less well off, creating jobs within the community, respect for nature, etc.

In all the villages, so many families are gone that when survivors start rebuilding houses on their old plots, the rebuilt villages begin looking very scattered and "unfriendly." It also becomes very expensive to lay new roads, electric wires and water supply pipes between such far-flung houses, with large areas of waste in between.

The problem is that everyone owns their own piece of land, and for many, this land is all they have left. So creating a new, more compact layout plan for these ruined villages becomes very difficult - nobody wants to give up their ancestral land to do what they would call in Thailand reblocking. Plus, even where a plot's owners have all died, their relatives or heirs in other towns are likely to show up some day to claim the land. The idea of collectively reorganizing these villages to make them more compact has been discussed, but nobody has pushed anything.

In the village of Meunasah Tuha, so many families have perished that if the 150 surviving families all rebuild on their original land, the place will be like a ghost town. In this village, the people have decided on their own to do "land consolidation." They want to live close together with their surviving neighbors. They also recognize that it's safer to rebuild the village on land farther back from the sea, and plant mangroves, coconuts and build a dike along the seafront.

So they decided to start with a clean slate and make a whole new village layout, with new house plots and new infrastructure. If things go well, Meunasah Tuha will be an important test case in Aceh for village-wide land readjustment
- by people.