Habitat: A Systems Perspective

We live with constant reminders of the fragility of our present world. Nature, once considered to be resilient and self healing, is today in the danger of self annihilation due to the massive destruction of its forests, water systems and soils - not the least to say of greenhouse gases - cloaking our earth.

Historically, evolution of human settlements has been in dynamic interaction with the natural systems. With limited impacts of localised impact, civilisations have either flourished or declined. However, never before have the compounding affects of local actions been so explicit in their reactions. Finally, the ever-forgiving Mother Nature is punishing the human race.

The concepts of ecological design and development of housing and habitat have become imperative for all acts of building rather than the eccentricity of a few, as thought of even a decade back. Habitat development that integrates environmental strategies at the conceptualisation stage itself is now being demanded from every builder and designer as a basic principle and core value.

In addition, in this world of growing inequities where human poverty and environmental concerns are so interlinked – integrating social and economic strategies into design and development processes of housing and habitat will ensure that base ecological principles are nurtured. In the absence of any one of these – or supremacy of one over the others – it will cause the human settlement system to collapse.

Key elements of each of the three environmental, social and economic parameters of design of human settlements include the overarching concerns of energy, fossil fuel dependency, GHG reduction, resource conservation linked to: livelihood, income-generating processes, local wealth-enhancing methods, strengthening local capacities – skills and knowledge systems and indeed promoting social cohesion and inclusive growth.

Human settlements are engines of economic and potential social growth even though the act of their development has negative environmental impacts both large and small. Can these engines create a net positive impact? Can they put back instead of only taking away?

Starting small, the first steps are to reduce and then reuse and recycle: reduce consumption, especially of virgin raw materials – reuse the wastes – recycle waters and debris, thus closing the loops. The second step will need to be more evolutionary: regenerate and indeed contribute positively to the environment – organic manure and energy from human waste, building materials from bamboo and fast-growing timbers. Many such options already exist. Technology can offer us ways to maximise resource extraction from nature – the same technology needs now to innovate methods to give back to nature.

As scientists work overtime to extract carbon from the atmosphere – junk from the oceans and chemicals from the rivers and soils to clean up the atmosphere – land and water resources, buildings and settlements must also contribute a net positive to the natural environment, social systems and local economies.

Within the design and development of human settlements it is now imperative that we consciously address the issues of triple bottom line accounting and integrate environment stewardship with social justice and economic efficiencies. We need to look at human habitat as systems rather than the sum of individual parts and address the complex interactions of water systems with waste, social and institutional interactions with forests management, local livelihoods with resources for construction, etc.

History will judge us on how we have managed to overcome the challenges that climate change and resource scarcity pose before us; especially how new solutions and ways of working include the poor and the vulnerable, both cities and the villages the developing as well as developed worlds.

This issue of the Development Alternatives newsletter brings to you some interlinked solutions in the area of rural habitat development. It poses many more questions than answers but nudges us in a direction of finding ways to enable sustainable habitat for all. q

Zeenat Niazi
zniazi@devalt.org

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