Local Community Perspective on Environmental Change Due to Urban Development: Study in the North-Coastal Area of Java in Demak Region

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-174-6_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

environmental change; lifestyle; efforts to survive; ecosystem imbalance

Abstract

Communities have their own perspective on their environment. That perspective is shaped by the long history of their life. The process of development in urban areas has created environmental impacts that were not previously imagined. This study aims to reveal the perspective of the community regarding the current environmental conditions, the causes the current conditions to arise, and their views about the impact of the current environmental conditions. Applying qualitative research methods, with field study and ethnographic approach, this study found that according to the community their environment now is a different to the environment they lived in before. Their previous residence was a place that gave them life, both the land and the sea. Currently, land cannot provide life because of high tides, while marine products cannot be obtained because most of the ponds have sunk, rivers and seas are polluted so fishing is hard to do.

The worsening living conditions of rural communities on the north coast of Java in Demak is caused by deteriorating environmental conditions as a result of the ongoing development process in the north coast of Java which does not consider the balance of the regional ecosystem, so that the impact is very detrimental to the community. The impact that emerged in the north coast of Java was the sinking of the coastal village area, that changed the lifestyle of the community. On the one hand, if they decide to stay in their area, they must always raise up their house level and they maintain their livelihood pattern as fishermen. If they decide to leave the village, they have to find a new place to live and adjust their livelihood to the new area, and generally they work as factory workers or small traders. The both are hard options for them.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Misbah Zulfa Elizabeth
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/01/08
TI  - Local Community Perspective on Environmental Change Due to Urban Development: Study in the North-Coastal Area of Java in Demak Region
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Democracy and Social Transformation (ICON-DEMOST 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 10
EP  - 13
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-174-6_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-174-6_3
ID  - Elizabeth2024
ER  -