Worshipers in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, intend to go green with a brand new initiative that goals to create 1,000 eco-mosques by 2020.
The initiative, launched this week by Indonesian Vice President Juuf Kalla, will help mosques source renewable energy, sustainably manage water and food demand, reduce and recycle waste and supply environmental education.
Under the project, leading Muslim officials will work with the private sector, ministries of health and planning, universities and other religious groups to extend environmental awareness in communities across the country.
“Most Muslims in Indonesia listen more to religious leaders than to the government,” Hayu Prabowo, head of environment and natural resources on the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“If an Islamic leader says something, they will follow him, but if the government says something, they may not.”
Indonesia, with a population of 250 million, has a mixed record on environmental protection.
The archipelago is the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal and producer of palm oil, which has led to the clearing and development of forest areas and intense international pressure to scale back deforestation.
Many of Indonesia’s rural and poorest provinces frequently experience drought resulting from climate change, and the dearth of standard power supply often hampers kid’s education.
Hening Parlan, coordinator for environment and disaster management at Aisyiyah, the ladies’s wing of Indonesia’s second largest Islamic organization Muhammadiyah, said the thought for eco-mosques arose from the query of easy methods to make mosques a middle for environmental protection and education in society.
“For many Indonesians, understanding the environment only comes when they see the effects of climate change (rather than through education)… if they suffer from floods or landslides, for example,” Parlan said.
She said the initiative would help mosques secure higher water supplies and storage facilities, offer fundraising advice and supply funding to mosques to assist them turn out to be environmentally friendly.
Instead of fossil fuels, solar energy and biogas may also be promoted, and imams will teach higher environmental awareness.
The eco-mosque initiative is just not the primary time MUI has taken a number one role in environmental protection – it has also issued edicts, or fatwas, on forest fires and sustainable mining.
There are greater than 800,000 mosques in Indonesia, but officials hope to expand to other places of worship after the primary 1,000 are established.
Building an eco-mosque on such a scale is rare. In Dubai, a mosque inbuilt 2014 was the primary to fulfill the rules of the US Green Building Council, while within the UK, the US, Morocco and Malaysia, mosques are designed to be greener.
“We need concrete actions to help mosques and their communities overcome the coming water and energy crisis by building resilience,” Prabowo said.
