As Seawater Erodes an Indonesian Village, Women Lead Climate Action to Save Their Homes

The village where Nunung, 48, lives has been her home ever since she was a baby. But much has changed since she was a little girl, including the dangerous shrinking of the nearby beach, which has been subsumed by the Indian Ocean by as much as 33 yards since 2011 — threatening the adjacent homes.

“I’m very worried,” Nunung said. “With every tidal flood, every time there's a high tide, our village is eroding away.”

Indonesia, an archipelagic country of more than 275 million people, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with sea levels rising and eroding or flooding the highly populated coasts. Nearly 200 out of about 500 coastal cities and districts in the country are at risk of being submerged by 2050, according to a 2021 analysis by Indonesia’s biggest daily newspaper, Kompas.

Pondok Kelapa, where Nunung lives, is in Bengkulu province on the southwestern coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. For the last decade or so, Pondok Kelapa residents have been facing exacerbated impacts of climate change, from tidal flooding to coastal erosion. The creep of seawater has been measured by the local chapter of the nonprofit Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), which is part of the Friends of the Earth International network and the oldest and biggest environmental NGO in the country.

The village of around 4,300 people has also been losing its livelihood — fisheries, which had once been the main source of income for many of its residents — to ocean acidification, overfishing, and climate change. Now they are forced to find other ways to make a living. In many households struggling to earn money, children have stopped going to school, and moving away has become the only alternative.

As the situation has grown more dire in the past decade, the village women decided it was time for them to take action.

Nunung is part of a group of about 30 women who call themselves Sungai Perempuan Lemau, which was formed three years ago to advocate for climate resilience support from the government. Members believe that they can accomplish more than men as women banded together.

“Women can take a bigger step than men,” Nunung said. “Us women, we move fast and reach out to relevant agencies so we get more of a response.”

The group has met with officials at the provincial level, increasing their odds of getting the support they need.

It’s a fundamental matter of survival, said Dodi Faisal, who heads WALHI’s advocacy in Bengkulu. “The government needs to act fast,” he said. “They need, for example, structures to protect from waves so that the impacts of abrasion can be minimized.”

The area would also benefit from ecosystem rehabilitation, Dodi added. For instance, he said, planting mangroves would help ease the impact of climate change. Mangroves absorb a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide and are robust enough to plant in areas where other plants and trees fail to grow.

Faith that women will make the difference

Rania, another member of Sungai Perempuan Lemau, said that generations of Pondok Kelapa residents led by men have advocated for a seawall to be built, but that those requests have fallen on deaf ears.

The women, with the help of WALHI, are now leading advocacy efforts, hoping for real change.

“What happens if there are high tides all the time?” Nunung asked. “How can we stop that without help from the government?” Still, she has faith the group can turn things around, as do the men of the village, who support the women’s efforts.

“At this time in history, it seems that the women’s voices are being heard, that’s what we believe,” she said. “Especially women’s organizations. We really believe that [our advocacy] will reach the right people and that they will understand how we truly need what we are advocating for.”

The women of Sungai Perempuan Lemau have successfully expressed their needs and goals, they say. But, as with previous efforts from men, there has yet to be much real progress on the ground.

For the women, however, though they have yet to see official promises turned into actions, there is simply no giving up when it comes to saving their homes. They have no other choice but to fight.

“It’s very much possible that one day the water will take my home,” said Rania. “That is why all of us, the residents of Pondok Kelapa, are very worried.”

As they continue their work, she fears that nothing will change until things become truly dire and deadly for the villagers. “We hope the government will act as soon as possible,” she said. “Please don’t let there be a victim first before they do something.”