Way back in 1978, a report by the World Bank and the International Development Research Centre drew attention to the poor performance of conventional sewage treatment and the positive role of fisherfolk and farmers in setting up a new approach. In 1992, Agenda 21, the program for sustainable development adopted at the Rio conference, included guidelines to set water-treatment priorities in terms of resource recovery, affordability and community participation. The clear conclusion: Municipal wastewater should be viewed as a resource instead of a pollutant, wastewater management should be a task of conservation rather than of pollution control, and traditional knowledge of local people should be incorporated in planning. In India, the launching of the Ganga Action Plan provided the necessary funds and opportunity to experiment with the new options in wastewater treatment. The basic difference between the conventional treatment plant and the proposed wetland option is that resource recovery is suggestive in the former while it is obligatory in the latter. In the latter it is an integral component of the design, the very basis of its link to the community.

The project we are now developing is a result of one of the earliest efforts in developing community-based technology for river sanitation. Here the conventional option in wastewater treatment has been replaced by an ecological design in which the task of reducing pollution and re-using nutrients is linked to the enhancement of food supply and development of a livelihood for local residents using nutrient-enriched effluents in fisheries and agriculture. The design of the system still recognizes existing policy and regulatory controls.

Early morning fishing in the East Calcutta wetlands

Introducing fish-farming in the ponds where the water has improved enough actually increases the efficiency of the system because the fish feed on algae that might otherwise smother the ponds, and because the revenue earned is adequate entrepreneurial incentive to operate the system productively.

The Four Necessities: Integrating the Economy

The wetlands program must include fish-farming, agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry; all these systems have a common nutrient base drawn from municipal wastewater. The productivity of these multiple sources of food goes a long way to strengthen support from the farm families, while the conventional treatment plant is invariably considered a project apart from the basic social and economic activities of a city and its fringe.

Developing wetlands in this way is the least expensive method, at an estimated 3 million rupees ($70,000) per million litres of wastewater a day, including the cost of land. The major cost is indeed the land, which should be a low-lying area at the fringe of a large city. These lands are generally the cheapest and in most cases do not raise more than one crop a year. It is possible to engage displaced farmers, for their new source of income can exceed what they earned before the project. Dhaka, Mumbai (Bombay), Jakarta, Calcutta and Bangkok are only a few of the cities with marshy backyards.

Early morning fishing in the East Calcutta wetlands

To reverse environmental decay, our technology must be rooted in the wisdom of local communities. The Chinese saying, "From the masses, back to the masses," summarizes the achievement best. The vital phrase for the changemaker is "confidence of the community." Existing engineering and technology invariably ignore this as a matter that merits learning. This is also where modifying engineering education to cater to the needs of sustainable development has remained weakest.

This goal was well explained by the head of a tribal village when I sought to educate myself about the life and livelihood there. A fire was lit upon a one-metre-square bed of rice husks and I, an inquisitive outsider, was asked to walk over the fire to prove my reliability. This was done. Meeting such a challenge to acquire traditional knowledge from isolated villagers is not unusual. It is often a drawn-out affair; it took three years for me to be accepted in the waste-recycling communities in the Calcutta wetlands. But it also took three years to explain to official decision makers that a conventional technology can give way to the traditional one. Yet the time never is wasted. Things have changed, and can change much further. Agenda 21 envisages a growth pattern that will be environmentally sound and will ensure equity for all. This is considered absolutely essential to relieve the great poverty that is deepening in the developing world. But this hope depends on decisive political action to now begin managing resources to ensure both sustainable human progress-and survival. In the Calcutta wetlands, treating wastewater as a resource instead of a pollutant clearly meets the challenge of finding a growth model for a sustainable future. The time is ripe to switch from the capital-intensive programs of the past to a sustainable alternative where money need not be a constraint.

A duck house on the fish ponds:   Snails spread on the ponds, inhibiting the growth of fish. Rural women collect the snails for money, and ducks feed on the snails. Duck droppings are good for the fish.

Municipal sanitation in many cases depends on multinational financing, and it is an obligation of the funding agencies to fulfill the United Nations mandate to avoid the prevailing top-down approach in favor of consultation at the community level and infusion of community wisdom. The top-down, high-tech approach invariably helps vested interests at both the global and local levels, with little or no improvement in the quality of life of the common people in whose name such finance is sought and who ultimately bear the debt burden.

The Lessons: Learning From the Bottom Up

Calcutta's resource-recovery practice is a "tutorial ecosystem" for others and a pointer toward the future of river sanitation in poorer countries. Still, institutionalising community involvement is a recent concept, and it has not been easy to achieve. It will need a deeper understanding of the interests that bind individual groups and market forces. Some barriers to the community-based approach include these:

• A top-down approach assigns specialists as the key personnel, but a community-based approach essentially needs facilitators. This is the kind of perceptual change that does not easily come to the classical mindset of those who promote development.
• The community-based approach draws specialists much closer to the problem and makes them much more directly answerable to the people. At times the experience can be difficult, and it is not the milieu to which specialists are accustomed.
• Theoretically, a community-based approach seems impractical. As involvement widens, there is a definite risk of far too many views to reach a consensus. This may lead to new conflicts and even political interference.

But it is worth remembering one's first view of the wetlands, the bheris, that lie to the east of Calcutta: An area that is, against all odds, rich in beauty and, though still poor, an area that offers hope to the local residents and a model for others.