An Exit Strategy to Resolve Waste Water Pollution from Batik Industry along the Watershed of Pekalongan River, Indonesia

Pekalongan municipality lies in the west-northern part of Central Java, it is considered as one of the biggest herritage of batik (a uniques textile printed) industry of Java since long time ago and till now.This textile industry of batik operates in small- to large-scales. Many of batik industry to get rid of their waste water directly to the ditches and at last flow to Pekalongan river. In fact, Pekalongan river as a part of watershed of Kali Kupang is stream down to Java sea passing the regency and municipality of Great Pekalongan. The main problem encountered in managing Pekalongan river since the last decade is heavy liquid waste pollution from batik industry. This is due to incomplete compliance of industry and less committment from other stakeholders for zero-waste conception. Many efforts had have been put on managing the Pekalongan river from technical aspect. However, it is remain ineffective to reduce the pollution which is shared mostly by the community and batik-makers. People are perceived that uncleaned water of Pekalongan river is becoming an indicator of spin over economic activities of textile industry. It is a big dilemma between economic and environment choice. The study aimed to formulate a blue print strategy for river-and-estuaries management using social enginering to empower stakeholders in the study area. This research employed purposive sampling to collect the data from households, entrepreneurs, and key-persons/ informants. In-depth interview and FGD were carried out, accordingly. This study applied a mix-method of quantitative method, such as institutional analysis and economic valuation method; and the qualitative ones to outline the strategy of stakeholders? empowerment. The results indicated that in the long-run co-management approach - among the responsible stakeholders along the river-and-estuaries resources - will shed a light for better management scheme for the study area. However, in the short-run, people tend to be more realistic to fall their choice more on economic consideration. Therefore, it is indeed need a social-engineering strategy to romance the stakeholders awareness to promote the sustainable resource management for river-and-estuaries. This study suggested that sooner or later, empowerment of the A-B-G-C stakeholders is becoming the most important agenda to manage river-and-estuaries resourcefor last for long