scholars work and interact with Indonesian academia will require more in-depth research. These gaps include how training and capacity development are available and expand beyond the current scholars, and the connection is made and maintained between Indonesian scholars who are based in the global and national or local level. *Third*, there are signifcant gaps in the current ESG debate and discussion, mainly informed by environmental policy or management instead of environmental governance; for example, lack of debate on the combination of socio-technical-ecological systems in transformations or a narrow focus on inequality on unequal access to resources. With regard to public participation in environmental governance, there is a signifcant observation of "pseudo"-participation, which is mainly procedural without deepening refection and tends to be centered around centralized control.

The authors also want to emphasize scholars, academia, practitioners, and policymakers concerning ESG with further research agenda and invite them to reiterate the importance and signifcance of realizing this research agenda in order to foreground ESG in a more diverse, in-depth, and critical manner to inform policy and practice. However, the authors are aware that this chapter is an initial investigation of the feld and does not cover the whole landscape of the feld and literature, and they want to highlight the agenda as potential future work. *First*, the authors encourage expanding the "accumulation of knowledge" (Newig & Rose, 2020, 2021) to be more representative and engage in inclusive co-production of knowledge. This agenda would mean re-thinking the "co" as refected by Howarth et al. (2022), in producing ESG knowledge to inform and infuence environmental governance in Indonesia and Indonesian academia and create an equal global partnership in research and policy development. *Second*, the authors invite more critical knowledge production and production of indigenous knowledge and representation, for example, storytelling, narrative, and everyday life. This agenda is also to reiterate our attendance and focus on societal transformations and inter−/transdisciplinary research, especially concerning Indonesia's current state of progress, that to a certain extent, shifting from decentralization to re-centralization in environmental governance across different sectors (forest, natural resources, disaster). It is to inform more critical research toward ontological, epistemological, and critical ways of knowing ESG in Indonesia and/or Indonesian academia, for example, lack of understanding with diversity, justice and allocation, anticipation and imagination, and adaptiveness and refexivity. *Third*, the authors suggest paying more attention to future thinking by exploring the concept of the Anthropocene as a contextual condition and incorporating anticipatory and transformative types of governance approaches as research lenses for the ESG framework and the environmental governance feld. These are important concepts and lenses to deal with more complex and uncertain earth systems and environmental challenges in the future. *Fourth,* the authors suggest galvanizing connection, network, and research partnerships across the ESG community to shape and create equal and inclusive research settings and implementation. Engagement with ESG Asia Pacifc Working Group is an important channel to facilitate this process to bridge the science–policy–practice to Indonesian research communities and vice versa, for example, U-INSPIRE Indonesia, Resilience Development Initiative, and Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta.

Finally, seeing these research agendas materialize in expanding research in ESG and/or informing research in environmental governance in Indonesia and Indonesian academia would be a signifcant step to further advance the feld toward a just and inclusive planetary future.

**Acknowledgments** The authors are grateful for the generous comments and constructive suggestions from reviewers.

### **References**

**Erwin Nugraha** is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente, Netherlands, and a senior research fellow at the Resilience Development Initiative (RDI), Indonesia. His research focuses on climate change adaptation, urban environmental justice, and planetary decolonization. He has published his research in *Disaster Prevention and Management*, *Environmental Science and Policy*, and an edited volume, *Overlooked Cities: Power, Politics and Knowledge Beyond the Urban South*.

**Mahesti Okitasari** is a research associate at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) based in Tokyo, Japan. Her current works include assessing multilevel governance arrangement and policy processes to implement the 2030 Agenda, researching linkages between development policies and global frameworks, and building knowledge on the partnerships and fnancing for the SDGs.

**Annisa Triyanti** is an assistant professor of disaster and climate risk governance for sustainability at the Environmental Governance Group, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. She obtained her PhD degree on the topic of governance of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) from the University of Amsterdam in 2019. She was also appointed as the young scientist representative for the Global Science and Technology Advisory Group on Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDRR 2017–2019. One of her latest appointments is a member of the Sendai Framework Hazard Terminology and Classifcation Review Task Team organized by the International Science Council and the UN Offce for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

**Yanuardi Yanuardi** is a PhD candidate at Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Previously, he worked in NGOs and research institutions in Indonesia. His research focuses on resource governance, peace, and political ecology. He has published his research in peer-reviewed international journals including *The Extractive Industries and Society* and *Journal of Political Ecology*. He is one of the ESG research fellows.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits 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.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **Chapter 4 Post-politicizing the Environment: Local Government Performance Assessments in Indonesia**

**Yogi Setya Permana, Septi Satriani, Imam Syaf'i, Pandu Yuhsina Adaba, Sari Seftiani, and Dini Suryani**

**Abstract** Indonesia is confronting an intensifying threat of ecological disaster due to excessive natural resource exploitation and environmental damage. Existing tools to evaluate local government performance are unable to critically assess many key aspects of natural resource and environmental management. The results of these formal performance assessments do not refect the reality in local communities. We argue that this gap is caused by more than just inaccurate reporting; the gap between reality and assessment results is because offcial assessment approaches sideline the consideration of state–society relations and socio-political dimensions. The assessments reduce natural resource management and environmental protection in Indonesia to techno-managerial terms that refect a post-politicizing of the environment, as outlined in Erik Swyngedouw's critical social science literature. In this chapter, we look specifcally at the content and application of these local government environmental performance assessment tools. While they may appear to cover key points of environmental good governance, their technocratic mode character is disguising politico-business linkages and oligarchical interests that damage the environment. Environmental crisis, social confict, and democratic regression are consequently on the increase in Indonesia.

Y. S. Permana (\*)

Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
S. Satriani · I. Syaf'i · P. Y. Adaba · D. Suryani Research Center for Politics, The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
S. Seftiani Research Center for Population, The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta, Indonesia

Research Center for Politics, The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta, Indonesia

**Keywords** Post-politicization · Environmental disasters · Local government · Democratic regression · Oligarchic policing

### **4.1 Introduction**

Environments are specifc historical results of socio-physical processes. (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 88)

In mid-June 2021, Indonesia's Environment and Forestry Minister, Siti Nurbaya, bestowed the Nirwasita Tantra – or "Green Leadership" – Award to the Banyuwangi District Government from East Java Province. The award is given annually to provincial and district/municipal governments that exhibit the best performance in mainstreaming the environmental sustainability agenda in their policies. The selection is based on the submission of the "Regional Environmental Management Performance Information Document" (Dokumen Informasi Kinerja Pengelolaan Lingkungan Hidup Daerah – DIKPLHD). The Banyuwangi District Government also received the Innovative Government Award (IGA) from the Ministry of Home Affairs for 3 years between 2017 and 2020 (Fanani, 2020). The IGA is the highest award given to local governments assessed to be successful in developing public service innovation.

Contrary to the public face of Banyuwangi District's exemplary performance in winning awards during this time, the district's signifcant environmental problems continued to worsen. Local conficts in the Tumpang Pitu Mountains began in 2015 when the area was converted from a protected forest area to a forest production area to allow mining exploitation permits to be issued (Riski, 2016). Local inhabitants continue to maintain that the mining activities are fueling ecological crisis and affecting the sustainability of people's livelihoods.

Environmental activists who opposed the Tumpang Pitu mine in Banyuwangi Distirct were also criminalized, including Heri Budiawan and Budi Pego (Hakim & Zuhro, 2018). In the latter case, local authorities portrayed Budi Pego as an agitator spreading communist ideas, and a local court sentenced him to 4 years imprisonment in 2018. An alliance of academics and civil society activists assessed the case and found the prosecution did not present solid evidence in the trial (Hakim, 2019). The troubles in Tumpang Pitu and the Budi Pego case were not documented in the DIKPLHD report that won Banyuwangi Distirct the Green Leadership Award. The case illustrates how techno-managerial assessments neglect real problems in grassroots communities and conceal the hidden face of environmental management in Indonesia.

The government capacity to acknowledge societal problems related to natural resource exploitation and build them into effective policies is crucial. Long-standing grievances can trigger violent confict if the government does not provide a serious response. Based on the reports from the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (Konsorsium Pembangunan Agraria – KPA), as shown in Fig. 4.1, there has been an

increasing trend of violent conficts related to natural resource management in the last decade. KPA noted that there were almost 3500 cases in various regions of Indonesia from 2009 to 2019. It started from 89 cases in 2009, peaked in 2017 with 659 cases, and decreased slightly to 241 cases in 2019. These conficts occurred in various sectors such as plantations, mining, forestry, fsheries, agriculture, and infrastructure (KPA, 2015, p. 5).

Local governments must provide equitable access to public services, including a sustainable environment for all residents in their territories. However, the Banyuwangi case illustrates the gap between the local government's performance assessment result and the reality faced by local communities and those activists attempting to bring diffcult social and political issues into the spotlight. This contradiction raises a diffcult question: How can the results of the offcial government assessment differ so markedly from reality? Rather than representing the consequence of inaccurate assessment, we argue that this contradictory phenomenon is caused by the problematic approach embedded in local government assessment tools that neutralize state–society relations and socio-political dimensions. The depoliticized assessment tools have methodological problems because they depend heavily on formal document sources. Rendering natural resources management and environmental protection into technical matters leads to social confict and environmental crisis. This is why award-friendly local governments have massive environmental problems and social confict.

In light of critical social science literature, particularly from Erik Swyngedouw, the authors maintain that the local government performance assessment tools used by Indonesian governments are institutionalizing the post-politicization of the environment. Post-politicization occurs when techno-managerial approaches become the dominant paradigm in viewing the socio-ecological arrangements of everyday

**Fig. 4.1** Agrarian confict in Indonesia, 2009–2019. (Compiled from KPA, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)

life. In this way, local government performance assessment tools fail to capture the complexity and confictual aspects of socio-ecological relations. Technocratic approaches overlook ecological problems connected closely to social ties, political constraints, and interest struggles. This technocratic mode of governance and the post-politicization of the environment are contributing to democratic regression noted in Indonesia.

The authors conducted a critical examination of local government performance assessments, especially related to environmental issues, and divided it into fve sections. This article is started by briefy discussing Erik Swyngedouw's concept of post-politicization and the data collection methods of this essay. We then focus on the two performance assessment tools used to select the winners of the Innovative Government Award (IGA) and Nirwasita Tantra or Green Leadership Award, using empirical insights gathered from our feldwork. In Sect. 4.4, we analyze the impact of technocratic modes of governance on the democratic regression recently noted by scholars in Indonesia. Section 4.5 concludes the analysis with recommendations to improve the tools and promote the agenda on democratizing environments.

### **4.2 Post-politicizing the Environment: Concept and Defnition**

Post-politicization in this article refers to the concept introduced by Erik Swyngedouw in his 2018 publication entitled "Promises of the Political: Insurgent Cities in a Post-political Environment." Swyngedouw defned post-politicization as "the contested and uneven process by which consensual governance of contentious public affairs through the mobilization of techno-managerial dispositives sutures or colonizes the space of the political" (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. xvi). The technomanagerial style of the government dominates political processes within state–society relations. The government has the authority to defne public issues, such as those linked to the environment, economic conditions, terrorism, or urban problems, and how to solve them. Therefore, public issues can be framed in managerial and technical terms devoid of socio-economic-political complexities, such as the structure of inequality and uneven power relations. The reality of antagonistic relations among societal groups in public affairs is processed through techno-managerial governance modes that prioritize accountancy rules, risk calculation (self-assessment), and competitive performance benchmarking (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 8 and 34). Furthermore, Swyngedouw explains that

Such depoliticizing gestures disavow the inherently heterogeneous and often antagonistic relations that cut through the social, and reduce the terrain of the political to the art or *techné* of public management. In other words, the political domain has been systematically narrowed over the past few decades to a techno- managerial apparatus of governance whereby fundamental choices are no longer possible or deemed reasonable. While problems and contentious issues of public concern (like environmental crises, urban revolts, terrorist threats, or economic conditions) are generally recognized, they are dealt with by means of consensual governance arrangements that do not question the wider social, ecological, and political-economic frame. Technological, institutional, and managerial "fxes" are negotiated that leave the basic political-economic structure intact. (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. xvi)

Post-politicization leads to the erosion of political control and accountability, contributing to democratic regression and even autocratic governance. Government policies are far from the people's aspirations and daily reality because they are formulated and implemented to serve a small group of individuals who have greater power and resources, a phenomenon linked to the rise of oligarchic policing (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 33). The subordination of civil society power in public policy matters is not conducted through the repressive violence that commonly appears in authoritarian regimes. Domination is carried out through consensual agreements fabricated in legal-institutional mechanisms and supported by administrative experts. Instead of voices, disagreement, and discontent, we have noise. As such, the politics and discontent surrounding arrangements for public goods, such as the environment or ecological change, are neutralized through so-called "good governance" mechanisms (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 27).

According to Swyngedouw (2018, pp. 88–89), the environment does not emerge from a vacuum but is the historical result of socio-physical processes. Therefore, socio-ecological change is never socially or ecologically neutral. He further stated that "the production of socio-ecological arrangements is always a deeply conficting, and hence irrevocably political process" (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 89), indicating that socio-environmental arrangements have never been and will never be neutral because of the unequal power relations in social life. As such, the production of these arrangements should refer to fundamental questions, such as who gains and who pays for them, who benefts from, and who suffers (and in what ways) from ecological change (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 89). Technocratic modes of governance undermine efforts to democratize environments, but democratic approaches are necessary because they pave the way for "identifying the strategies through which a more equitable distribution of social power and more inclusive modes of producing natures can be achieved" (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 89).

### **4.3 Data Collection Methods**

This essay refects the authors' experience developing alternative local government performance assessments for environment and natural resource management since 2016. The authors did not work with the tools or teams linked to the assessments used in the IGA or the Green Leadership Awards described above. At frst, we conducted feldwork to observe the local government performance on natural resource management in Bima District (West Nusa Tenggara), Kotawaringin Timur District (Central Kalimantan), Gianyar District (Bali), Pandeglang District (Banten), and Medan City (North Sumatra). This feldwork provided the basis for formulating assessment components and indicators (Satriani et al., 2021).

From this research in fve regions, we discovered that the crucial factors infuencing the success of local governments in dealing with issues of natural resource exploitation are license permit processes, access to information, public participation, and impact management. These four issues became the focus of the alternative assessment tools later developed by the authors. These new assessment tools enabled assessors to identify and record the complexities of natural resource management and to highlight real problems such as undocumented institutional problems and local confict, patronage politics, shortcomings in existing socialization/participation mechanisms, criminalization of activists, and local community vulnerability to disasters.

The Asia Foundation assisted the authors in refning the instruments by supporting additional activities, such as feldwork, expert meetings, and workshops. Collaborating with the Asia Foundation, the authors tested their revised local government performance assessment tools in seven districts and municipalities: Banyuwangi District (East Java), Klungkung District (Bali), Boalemo District (Gorontalo), Kubu Raya District (West Kalimantan), Ogan Komering Ilir District (South Sumatra), Pelalawan District (Riau), and Samarinda City (East Kalimantan) (Permana et al., 2019). Additional feldwork was carried out so that the instrument could better accommodate various local contexts. The authors obtained numerous inputs from strategic stakeholders during the testing process that helped synchronize the needs of central and provincial governments and civil society organizations.

The authors compared the newly proposed tool with other local government performance evaluation tools, including the IGA assessment of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the DIKPLHD and Green Leadership Award assessments tools from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. We compared data sources, assessment methods, and assessment indicators. Overall, our approaches were signifcantly different from existing government performance evaluation processes that do not accommodate or, in some cases, even involve critical groups in the region. Our system does not rely on submissions of lengthy documents but seeks more critical assessments from progressive NGOs and intellectuals.

### **4.4 Review on Local Government Performance Assessment Tools**

Local government performance assessment systems are relatively recent phenomena in Indonesia, dating from the end of one of the most stringent centralized authoritarian systems in the world (Booth, 2014, p. 33). During the New Order period (1966–1998), local governments acted only as implementers of central government policies. The onset of widespread democratization and decentralization that followed in 1999 was marked by a lack of local government capacity and institutional memory to manage their governance functions autonomously, as well as the

policy and program tools needed to formulate plans and later evaluate their work. Therefore, local governments tended to ft into a technocratic mode that defned performance in basic administrative-managerial terms. This one-size fts-all approach to mainstreaming decentralization was endorsed by international donors such as the World Bank (Hadiz, 2010).

The central government took the lead in establishing local government performance evaluation systems. Most systems created by line ministries and agencies used a "ranking system" in their evaluation tools used at provincial and district/ municipal levels. Positive assessment result was linked to heightened prestige as well as access to budget funding and other support incentives. Decentralization saw several key functions become the authority of local governments, but Law No. 23/2014 on Regional Autonomy brought many backs under central government control. Local governments, nevertheless, remain the key intermediary actor between the central government and communities. They have substantial authority over key matters, such as providing licenses and recommendations for natural resource exploitation, including the Environmental Impact Analysis (Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan – AMDAL), and land use permits as determined in Regional Spatial Plans. Local government agencies are also crucial in providing public services related to environmental protection to citizens.

There was a proliferation of evaluation systems in line with the development of modern public governance. However, the capacity for evaluation in local government is uneven, leading to poor standards of reporting and assessment of results (Sanderson, 2001, p. 297). In the Indonesian context, state ministries and agencies created their own local government performance evaluation systems. The Ministry of Home Affairs was the most active in this, as they are responsible for controlling and monitoring the governance work of local governments.

The majority of these local government performance evaluation systems are based on administrative requirements and managerial or technocratic performance relating, for example, to budget spending, the issuance of local regulations, standard operational procedure (SOP) documents, visual documentation (photos and videos), supporting infrastructure, and news from online media. As such, local governments that are diligent in collecting and submitting these documents have a greater chance of rising in the ranking system and of winning awards. Although some assessment tools include opinion surveys or interviews, the extent to which these modalities involve all stakeholders and the depth of information is unclear.

To present a more detailed picture of local government performance assessment tools, we consider the mechanisms associated with the Regional Innovation Index or Innovative Government Award (IGA) and the Nirwasita Tantra or Green Leadership Award. We chose these tools because of their high public profle and because they are often used as the basis for claiming success in local government performance. In addition, these two assessment tools are still actively used until this time. Although the IGA does not explicitly evaluate the performance of local governments in environmental affairs, it helps illustrate the technocratic mode of government that is the basis for local government performance evaluations in general.

### *4.4.1 The Innovative Government Award (IGA)*

The issue of promoting innovation at local government levels came to the forefront following the issuance of Law No. 23/2014 as the amendment of Indonesia's regional autonomy law that was previously regulated in Law No. 22/1999 and Law No. 32/2004. In 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a regulation to evaluate local government innovation initiatives and to map progress over time. The index also aims to benchmark and enable sharing experiences about innovation between local governments (Tan, 2019). Assessment results are announced to the public, and winners receive incentives from the central government. The Banyuwangi District Government received 9 billion rupiah (USD 624 thousand) when they won the award in 2019 (Gewati, 2019).

In the initial assessment stage, each local government must collect and submit information to the Ministry's online portal (http://index.inovasi.otda.go.id/jasa/). Two types of supporting documentation must be submitted via the portal, i.e., the local government profle and the profle of the innovation program itself. The supporting documents related to the local government profle are (1) local government vision and mission; (2) the number of innovations produced by the local government; (3) the amount of per capita income, employment, investment, and regional income (Pendapatan Asli Daerah – PAD); (4) the audit result from Audit Board of the Republic Indonesia (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan – BPK); and (5) Human Development Index (Indeks Pembangunan Manusia – IPM).

Meanwhile, the documents that must be submitted related to the profle of the innovation program are (1) local government regulation on the innovation program; (2) the availability of human resources; (3) budgeting documents; (4) information technology infrastructure; (5) document of the public campaign; (6) document on technical implementation; (7) document of public complaint service; (8) document of satisfaction survey; and (9) visual documentation, such as photos and videos showing program activity (Kemendagri, 2019). Once a local government sends all the documents, the central government forms a team to assess the submission. The assessment team chooses the best local government at provincial and district/ municipal levels. They will also visit the regions to validate the documents. The Ministry of Home Affairs invites winners to present their innovation policies in Jakarta. Many aspects of the submission and review processes clearly follow accepted "good governance" approaches, and the IGA process shows the government's normative policy commitment.

Based on our empirical fndings from our feldwork in 12 regions from 2016 to 2019, the authors found that the IGA assessment method is problematic (Syaf'i & Gayatri, 2019; Satriani et al., 2021; Permana et al., 2019). The driving force within Indonesia's assessment bureaucracy is applying formal mechanisms that ensure positive outcomes in government reports and submissions. A noticeable factor in the failure of administrative-based assessments to comprehend reality is the presence of patronage networks within the bureaucracies. Possessing relevant skills, competencies, and credentials needed to conduct assessments was not as important as political interests regarding the appointment and rotation of employees (informant interview, 2018).

The indicators of participation and socialization were also problematic. We found that the practice of promoting public participation was simply by sending a letter to the village head. Village heads then had the authority to decide who to invite to "public" meetings. The government used residents' signatures from the attendance list to claim participation in policymaking activities. This practice illustrates how technocratic modes of governance assessment warp relations between the state and society and spread misrepresentation. It is a pattern in normalizing "good governance," which reduces political–social input to the formal systems.

We also found that ineffective policy socialization from the local government was a direct cause of the violent conficts in Bima Regency, West Nusa Tenggara Province, in 2010 and 2012 (Satriani, 2015). The local government merely conveyed government policies without collecting and considering residents' concerns and aspirations. People directly affected by the government policies and programs did not have access to suffcient information on the exploration and exploitation of natural resources in their local area (Satriani et al., 2021). Residents were surprised by sudden exploration activities without any public consultation.

### *4.4.2 Nirwasita Tantra (The Green Leadership Award)*

Nirwasita Tantra, popularly known as the Green Leadership Award, is based on the Regional Environmental Management Performance Information Document (Dokumen Informasi Kinerja Pengeloaan Lingkungan Hidup Daerah – DIKPLHD) at the provincial and district/municipal levels. The DIKPLHD is formulated by a team formed by the head of local government consisting of bureaucrats, academic representatives, and community representation. This document consists of two reports: the frst report contains the executive summary, and the second report contains information on the performance of local environmental management. The complete report explains environmental problems in the region, their causes, impacts, and efforts to improve environmental quality based on the analysis of Driving Force, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (Pusat Data dan Informasi Sekretariat Jenderal KLHK, 2018, p. 1). The team should also elaborate on the priority issues in improving the quality of the environment.

According to the offcial documents, several key aspects of the DIKPLHD formulation process must involve public participation and/or issues of recognized public concern. However, due to the fact that the local government directly selects DIKPLHD authors, most of the team comprises hand-picked bureaucrats, and the independence of the team and its assessment cannot be guaranteed. It is diffcult to fnd any sort of critical analysis on environmental issues and the management of natural resources in a DIKPLHD report. Local governments want and sometimes need a positive assessment result in order to access resources or boost prestige. As such, the DIKPLHD approach is unlikely to present factors like lucrative relations between government elites and business actors and their links to environmental damage. Therefore, the formulation of DIKPLHD should involve independent civil society organizations with a progressive and independent position in environmental and natural resource issues, such as the Indonesian Forum for Environment (*Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia* – WALHI) and/or the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (*Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia* – YLBHI).

The involvement of organizations such as WALHI and YLBHI could make the DIKPLHD process more critical and objective and ensure that government assessment and reporting cover all sides of environmental governance in the regions. In our feldwork research, we found many instances of undocumented institutional problems and local conficts. Although Banyuwangi District Government received the Green Leadership Award, local institutional capacity in mitigating potential environmental impacts is insuffcient. For example, the district lacks an environmental laboratory to test and measure environmental damage (Satriani et al., 2021) but has devoted resources to business investment licensing through its Public Service Mall.

Another fundamental weakness is that the DIKPLHD cannot capture the complexity of environmental problems and ecological crises in the regions because it sidelines political dimensions to maintain the façade of good governance. Environmental issues are deeply politicized and confictual, but the DIKPLHD frames them in a nonpolitical approach. The detailed case of the violent confict at Tumpang Pitu and the criminalization of environmental activists, such as Budi Pego, is hardly mentioned in Banyuwangi District's DIKPLHD, even though it had a signifcant impact on local livelihoods and attracted public concern. An environmental assessment that ignores the nature of asymmetric power holders in a society and emphasizes the technocratic aspects of governance will fail to capture the complexity of ecological problems.

### **4.5 Post-politicizing the Environment and Indonesian Democratic Regression**

The concept of post-politicization defned by Swyngedouw (2018) is relevant to criticizing local government performance assessments in Indonesia. This concept comprehends the social construction of techno-managerial arrangements perceived as "normal" forms of governance. The domination of technocratic modes of governance makes environmental regulation in Indonesia fail to capture complex realities and confictual relations in socio-ecological change. Environmental change is not a neutral process but is infuenced by the interests of asymmetric power holders in the society. Environmental arrangements result from political processes and power plays, but Indonesian systems tend to be non-political. Therefore, the results of the local government performance assessments are incapable of refecting real

conditions. As such, this kind of assessment is incapable of issuing a "wake-up call" for the government to respond to ecological crises and environmental damage.

Post-politicization is a concept that exposes the weakness of "good governance" (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 27). In our current good governance epoch, technomanagerial reference frames dominate the running of government and shape state– society relations. Techno-managerial approaches make "the state operate increasingly "at a distance" from the concerns, drives, and desires of large parts of civil society" (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 33). When policies on natural resource and environmental management are not inclusive, protests and resistance easily occur, as seen in Indonesia's increasing trend of agrarian conficts over the last decade (see Fig. 4.1). "Oligarchic policing" – wherein the politico-business elite determine government policies and practices and deny access to underprivileged societal groups – becomes increasingly evident. Community members who take a public stand become targets and are arrested and imprisoned, such as Effendi Buhing, an indigenous Kinipan community leader in Central Kalimantan. Effendi was arrested and charged with theft, assault, and robbery (Pahlevi, 2020). Excessive deforestation in Central Kalimantan has damaged natural environments on a massive scale, making local inhabitants vulnerable to foods and landslides.

The existing local government performance assessment fails to capture the power asymmetry dimension and structure of inequality that infuences the natural resource exploitation process. In the post-politicization concept, power asymmetry is indicated by oligarchic policing. It occurs when the nonelite civil society is marginalized in the policy process because the government only serves individuals with greater power and resources (Swyngedouw, 2018). Oligarchic policing triggers conficts and protests and contributes to the ecological crisis and disasters in Indonesia. The 2021 food in South Kalimantan also provides insight into how predatory political-economy elites caused people to be vulnerable to climate hazards due to massive environmental damage (Permana, 2021). The lucrative politico-business linkages transformed the green zones and water catchment areas along the Barito River into extractive industries such as mining and palm oil plantations.

Another example is the haze crisis that occurs every year in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Studies have found that the greatest challenge to stopping the crisis is powerful clientelism networks between palm oil companies and political elites (Varkkey, 2015). The companies' plantation activities are protected, including using fre for land clearing. Others have noted that land clearing with fre increases around the time of local elections because many politicians use land for vote-buying (Purnomo et al., 2019). Therefore, technical solutions, such as strengthening government capacity in frefghting services, will not solve the more fundamental problem.

The increasing intensity of ecological disasters is also symptomatic of democratic regression. Experts have an emerging consensus that Indonesia is suffering democratic regression (Warburton & Aspinall, 2019, p. 256), which is characterized by the presence of national and local oligarchs within a "system of power relations that enables the concentration of wealth and authority and its collective defense" (Hadiz & Robison, 2013, p. 37). The democratization that began in 1998, followed by decentralization in 1999, did not radically change the national power structure and the politico-business oligarchy survived (Hadiz & Robison, 2013, p. 38). The adoption of techno-managerial governance approaches indirectly contributed to this democratic regression because of the erosion of public control and accountability (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 33). In the Indonesian context, the performance of local governments is assessed with certain norms that exclude control from society. Thus, protests and discontent, which are part of public control, are delegitimized through a series of managerial-expertise justifcations. The decline of public control can be exemplifed by the weakening of public control in producing environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) as part of the business license process under the country's recent Omnibus Law (Permana, 2020).

### **4.6 Conclusion**

Based on our feldwork and academic review, the authors conclude that local government performance assessments, such as the IGA and DIKPLHD, fail to capture the reality of environmental change in Indonesia, especially the complex problems related to power relations and the structure of inequality. Although only two examples have been reviewed in this paper, they are indicative of the pervading problems of techno-managerial approaches to environmental management. Local governments lack the capacity to conduct assessments while nongovernment participation in assessment teams and processes is fawed. The assessments tend to rely on documentation, and so diligent administration and complete submissions are rewarded, not performance. Conficts are increasing due to the marginalization of political– social aspects. Participation of progressive, civil society institutions is needed to democratize the environment and improve assessment results.

While local government performance assessments need to change their reliance on formal document sources, they must also accommodate progressive civil society organizations, such as WALHI and YLBHI, in the assessment process. These two institutions have networks in 34 provinces in Indonesia, with human resources to act as assessment partners. They can also recommend local academics of high integrity to be involved in the assessment in each region. In this way, the participatory approach to assessing local government performance is no longer just a normative tagline but will become a substantial principle. Without radical improvement, assessment activities will only be "business as usual" amidst a looming ecological crisis. Local government performance assessments should be able to contribute to democratizing environments in Indonesia. Democratizing environments means adopting more egalitarian socio-ecological arrangements, more equitable distribution of social power, and more inclusive modes of producing natures (Swyngedouw, 2018, p. 89).

### **References**

**Yogi Setya Permana** is a Ph.D. researcher within the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) – Universiteit Leiden's research agenda on the governance of climate change adaptation. His focus is the politics of food governance in Indonesia. He is also a researcher at National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Indonesia. More information on his research can be found at yogisetyapermana.com.

**Septi Satriani** is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Indonesia. She has worked as a researcher at the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (Pusat Riset Politik, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Indonesia, since 2005. She earned an M.A. from Gadjah Mada University in 2016. She has been working on several research topics such as local politics, confict, and natural resource management.

**Imam Syaf'i** is a researcher at the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (Pusat Riset Politik, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Republic of Indonesia. He joined in 2014 with a focus on Local Politics and Maritime History. He completed his master's degree from the Department of History, Diponegoro University, Indonesia.

**Pandu Yuhsina Adaba** is a researcher at Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (Pusat Riset Politik, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Republic of Indonesia. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Gadjah Mada University. Currently, he is pursuing a master's degree in rural sociology at Bogor Agricultural Institute. Pandu is also a researcher at Dignity Indonesia Foundation.

**Sari Seftiani** is a researcher at Research Center for Population – National Research and Innovation Agency (Pusat Riset Kependudukan, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Indonesia. She obtained her M.Sc. in Population Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (2016). She has involved in various types of research about family resilience, older people, and health security. Her current research is about the COVID-19 pandemic from a social demographic perspective.

**Dini Suryani** joined the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (Pusat Riset Politik, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional – BRIN), Indonesia, in 2011. She acquired her master's degree from the College of Asia and the Pacifc at the Australian National University (2015). Her researches mainly focus on civil society, local politics, and natural resources governance.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits 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.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Part II Wetlands**

### **Chapter 5 Gender and Climate Change Vulnerability: A Case Study of a Coastal Community in Pramuka Island, the Seribu Islands**

**Tri Saputro and Priya Kurian**

**Abstract** Climate change poses a signifcant threat to people's lives and livelihoods around the globe, and communities of small low-lying islands of the developing world are especially vulnerable. As a growing scholarship demonstrates, the impacts of climate change on people's lives vary along gender lines, among other factors. Thus, understanding the gendered implications of climate change risks and impacts is essential to inform policies that are responsive to the needs of vulnerable groups. This chapter explores the implications of climate change impacts for the lives of women and men on a small and vulnerable coastal community on Pramuka Island, a part of the group of Seribu Islands, Jakarta, Indonesia. The study examines how changes in women's and men's employment, income, and time management refect the ways in which environmental changes, including climate change, shape the everyday lived experiences of vulnerable local communities of small islands.

**Keywords** Climate change · Gender · Fisheries · Coastal community

### **5.1 Introduction**

Indonesia, the largest archipelagic state with over 17,500 islands, faces a signifcant risk of climate change impacts, including foods, droughts, sea level rise, increasing temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns (World Bank, 2020; Wong et al., 2014). Such risks are even higher in smaller islands (Wirawan, 2010), such as the Seribu Islands (Firman et al., 2011). With a constellation of over 110 small islands to the north of the capital city Jakarta, most of the Seribu Islands are only ±1-meter-high

T. Saputro (\*)

P. Kurian

Environment Division, ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2023

A. Triyanti et al. (eds.), *Environmental Governance in Indonesia*, Environment

from sea level (Statistics Kepulauan Seribu Administrative Regency, 2017a, b) and are known for their weak resource management practices (Fauzi & Buchary, 2002). The communities living on the Seribu Islands are especially vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, while also being among the most socioeconomically vulnerable in the country (Firman et al., 2011). Such vulnerabilities are enhanced by exposure to natural/human-induced disasters, with the experience of disasters being mediated by gender roles and gender relations that "shape and are shaped by social, spatial and temporal structures and practices" (Tickamyer & Kusujiarti, 2020, p. 233).

In the context of environmental change and, more specifcally, climate change, a signifcant scholarship has demonstrated that the impacts of such changes are not gender neutral (see, e.g., Agarwal, 1992, 2010; Arora-Jonsson, 2014; Dankelman & Jansen, 2010; Nelson et al., 2002). Gender, a concept that invokes ideas around gender roles and gender relations, also serves as an analytic category that helps us understand how gendered power relations permeate institutions and shape social practices, and access to knowledge and resources (see, e.g., Kurian, 2019; MacGregor, 2019; Arora-Jonsson, 2014). Feminist scholars have argued that gendered values and masculine ideologies underpin colonialism, capitalism, and a development agenda that has led to the crisis of climate change (see, e.g., MacGregor, 2019; Gaard, 2015). In addition, women in the Global South, particularly from lower socioeconomic classes with limited access to resources and whose social contexts are framed by gendered social and cultural norms, are more likely to face greater challenges of survival. For example, climate change-related natural/humaninduced disasters and environmental degradation have signifcant implications for women's workload and vulnerability (Nagel, 2017; Tickamyer & Kusujiarti, 2020). Yet, how women, men, families, and communities negotiate the realities of a climate-changed, disaster-prone world, particularly in the context of a developing island state such as Indonesia, requires more academic attention.

As scholars have noted, understanding differences of community experiences and responses toward the risk of climate change on the basis of gender is crucial to develop strategies for just and equitable climate-related policies, while increasing the resilience of already marginalized groups (Tickamyer et al., 2014). Despite the signifcance of this issue, research focused on gender roles, relations, and values in the context of sustainable development and climate change impacts on small islands in Indonesia is limited (Tickamyer et al., 2014). This chapter addresses the gap in the literature on gender and climate change in Indonesia through a specifc focus on a small and vulnerable coastal community on Pramuka Island, a part of the group of Seribu Islands.1 It explores how changes in women's and men's employment, income, and time management refect the ways in which environmental changes, including climate change, shape the everyday lived experiences of vulnerable local communities of small islands. It begins with a brief background on climate change

<sup>1</sup>We acknowledge the reality of gender diversity that goes beyond the binaries of the roles and experiences of males and females. In the context of this study, all the research participants selfidentifed as male or female and this is refected in the language we use.

impacts on Indonesia and a review of the gender and climate change scholarship and then provides an overview of the research methodology before turning to the fndings and analysis, which contribute to a bottom-up, gender-sensitive advancement of climate adaptation policies from the perspective of the local community. As Boissière et al. (2013) argue, the view of the local is fundamental to determining appropriate strategies to adapt to the changing climate.

### **5.2 Climate Change Impacts and Gender in Indonesia**

Anthropogenic climate change, as fagged by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has signifcant negative impacts on the economy, society, environment, and culture of countries across local, national, and global scales (Wong et al., 2014; IPCC, 2013a, b). Alongside the impacts on biodiversity, patterns of precipitation, droughts, and foods in many parts of the world, the reports note that low-lying and small islands are most vulnerable to severe impacts of climate change (Wong et al., 2014). In the context of Indonesia, evidence of climate change is seen, for example, in the decrease in the annual precipitation and drier climate condition in West Java (Kaars & Dam, 1997). The country also experienced its hottest year in 2016, with the average temperature being recorded as 1.2 Celsius higher than usual (Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics, 2018). Such changes, with the resulting water scarcity and intensifed droughts in parts of Java Island, for example, have affected agricultural systems and thus impacted the livelihoods of communities (Widiyanti & Dittmann, 2014). The shifting average temperature in Indonesia has also led to a decline in rice crop yield and farmers' income, affecting the country's social and economic systems (Caruso et al., 2016). The social and economic impacts of climate change on sustainable development in Indonesia, spanning areas of food production, health, infrastructure, and livelihoods, are not uniform but vary across gender, class, and other crosscutting societal cleavages.

The relationship between humans and the environment is gendered, and this relationship varies in different social contexts and changes over time (Dankelman & Jansen, 2010). Furthermore, gender also plays a role in at least three different aspects of climate change, namely, the creation of climate change knowledge, experience of climate change impacts, and the responses toward them (MacGregor, 2010; Arora-Jonsson, 2014). In the context of developing countries, Agarwal (2010) argues that women and men are disparately affected by environmental change in terms of their income, time, health, nutrition, knowledge system, and social-support network, and their responses toward environmental governance also vary. Women's responsibilities for ensuring adequate access to water for household needs result in putting them at a higher risk of physical injuries (such as spinal injuries), especially during droughts when they need to walk further (Nagel, 2017; Sorenson et al., 2011). In addition, these women also sacrifce their time that they could otherwise use for education and income-earning activities. Such gendered impacts of environmental changes are refected in the differential impacts of climate change, with implications for local environmental governance.

In the Indonesian context, vulnerability to climate change is enhanced by social inequalities, and as in the case of disaster risk and vulnerabilities, "gender is invariably a central component" of the factors that increase such vulnerability (Tickamyer & Kusujiarti, 2020, p. 236). Patriarchal gender relations in Indonesia reinforce male dominance (Hubeis, 2010) and, as elsewhere in much of the rural Global South, women are responsible for domestic tasks, including provision of water for cooking, washing, and drinking, as well as primary responsibility for childcare, while men are designated as the major income earner in the family. Aside from patriarchal views, family dynamics and gender relations in Indonesia are also strongly infuenced by religious norms, with an expectation for women to be obedient wives and mothers, while fathers are viewed as the custodians and protectors of the family (Rinaldo, 2008). Thus, gender roles and relations are deeply imbued by power inequalities that in turn shape the nature of climate change impacts on people.

### **5.3 Pramuka Island, the Seribu Islands: The Context**

Pramuka Island, one of the islands in the Seribu Island archipelago, is located 74 km from the main island of Jakarta (see Figs. 5.1 and 5.2).

The following graphs from the local meteorological station show the changes in average temperature and rainfall in the Seribu Islands from 1973 to 2017 (see Fig. 5.3), which are potentially refective of climate change impacts.

**Fig. 5.1** Indonesia map. (Google Maps, 2022)

**Fig. 5.2** Pramuka Island map. (Panggang Island Administrative Village, 2018; Google Maps, 2018)

Furthermore, statistics of the occurrence of storms and rainy days in the Seribu Islands (see Fig. 5.4) also show gradual changes. The number of rainy days in 2011, 2014, and 2016 increased gradually as did the frequency of storms. Although the cause of these changes has not been defnitively established, they are in keeping with predicted climate change-related impacts.

At the time the research was conducted in 2018, Pramuka Island had 1894 inhabitants, with fshing as the dominant community activity (Panggang Island Administrative Village (PIAV), 2018). Of this population, 1059 (55.9%) were adults and 835 (44.1%) children. The gender make-up of the population was 955 (50.4%) females and 939 (49.6%) males. Most people in Pramuka Island live in a family unit. The total number of households on the island comprises 584 units, of which only 71 (12.2%) are deemed female-headed households. Most men in the island work as fshermen, while women more often work as traders. The graph below describes the distribution of occupations in the community at the village level (Fig. 5.5).

In line with the IPCC's (2014a, b, 2021) observations about coastal fooding in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, and predictions about the displacement of people in low-lying coastal zones by 2100, Firman et al. (2011) argue that people in the Seribu Islands and on the main island of Jakarta are vulnerable to the risk of climate-related hazards in terms of fooding, sea-level rise, and intensifed storms. The increased frequency of natural/human-induced disasters and climate-related hazards thus threatens the livelihood of local communities, exacerbating the vulnerability of these islands.

**Fig. 5.3** Temperature and rainfall change. (Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics, 2018)

### **5.4 Methodology**

This research deploys an interpretivist qualitative research methodology to investigate Pramuka islanders' understanding of the environmental changes they observe and the challenges that such changes pose to their community. It draws on the stories and experiences of members of the community. We used semi-structured

**Fig. 5.4** Frequency of rain and storm in the Seribu Islands (2011, 2014, and 2016). (Statistics Kepulauan Seribu Administrative Regency, 2012–2017)

**Fig. 5.5** Distribution of main occupations of females and males in Pramuka Island. (PIAV, 2018)

interviews to develop a rich understanding of the experiences and impacts of climate change risks of women and men. Using purposive sampling, nine male and seven female participants were selected on the basis of gender and occupation to capture their everyday lived experiences in the face of a climate-changed world.

The 16 semi-structured interviews, conducted in 2018, lasted approximately 30 min to 1 h. To maintain the confdentiality of the participants, we coded and classifed the respondents using their gender, an ordinal number, and occupation, for instance: Female 1, Trader; or Male 1, Fisherman. In addition, three semi-structured interviews were also conducted with representatives of the Indonesian government working in the areas of climate change and/or gender, including representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (coded as MoEF1), Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (coded as MoWE1), and the Seribu Islands Regional Environmental Agency (coded as SIEA1). The purpose of these interviews was to gain broad information about the community's current situation and climate change.

Interview questions covered aspects of the community's life, such as their perceptions of the changes in seasonal patterns, fsheries resource depletion, the frequency and intensity of severe storms, waves, and rainfall, and availability of freshwater. The interview questions also explored how the community copes with any changes, as well as the nature of gender relationships. Additionally, feld observation was conducted and available records concerning the research topic were collected to strengthen the empirical evidence of this research. The interviews were conducted in Bahasa and then translated and transcribed by the frst author. Data from interviews were thematically analyzed (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Lawless & Chen, 2019) and examined against insights from the literature on gender and climate change. A close reading of interview transcripts led to a process of generating themes, followed by an analysis and discussion of these themes. An explanation of the case was developed in a narrative fashion in a way that was theoretically rigorous (Yin, 2014; Bryman, 2016). The themes spanned gender norms and livelihoods, reduction in fsh stocks and their implications for men and women, and the impacts of changing weather patterns on women and men.

### **5.5 Findings**

### *5.5.1 Gender and Livelihood in the Pramuka Island*

The Pramuka Island society follows traditional gender norms in Indonesia where women are typically responsible for domestic tasks such as making food for the family and taking care of children. In contrast, men tend to be the primary breadwinners of the family and act as family representatives at public hearings, such as those around the use of natural resources, including fsheries and aquaculture program development. Participants described these gender expectations as follows:

We (men) must make an effort to support children and wife; we need to fulfl basic family needs every day; we need to eat every day; we can't just sit. When the weather (in ocean) is not supportive, we look for another job on the land, like construction work. (Male 9, Fisherman)

Yes, I take the role for taking care of children. Their father works, I help him with selling these (food products). (Female 2, Trader)

However, despite these gender norms, women also undertake work outside the home to gain additional income for their families, such as selling food and produce, when their time allows. Similarly, men also contribute to domestic labor, such as undertaking some childcare activities when required. This pattern of some men performing domestic roles when they are not fshing or after they get home from the ocean is also found in several other fshing communities in Indonesia (Indrawasih, 2015).

Fishing is the major income-earning activity for men, serving as the primary source of income for 62.2% of the total male population in Pramuka Island (PIAV, 2018). No women were involved in fshing. The fshermen normally go fshing between sunrise and late afternoon every day when the weather is good. Interviews and feld observations revealed that there are two categories of fshermen: independent fshers and dependent fshers. The dependent fshers usually get a loan from their patron to purchase a boat and then sell their fsh – either for consumption or for aquariums – exclusively to the patrons. They are also required to catch enough commercial fsh to pay their debts to the patron. On the other hand, independent fshers have control over their income with no debts to pay off and their fsh catch is made up of a mix of commercial and noncommercial fsh. The patron–client system in small-scale fshing practices in Indonesia is a common practice, with many small island territories following this fshing pattern (Miñarro et al., 2016).

Fishing on Pramuka Island is highly dependent on the weather situation and fshermen tend not to go fshing during rainy and windy weather. When they cannot go fshing, they usually engage in other forms of employment to sustain themselves economically, including working in the tourism sector (mostly during weekends or holidays) by renting boats and providing recreational services for tourists.

Women, on the other hand, mostly perform domestic roles as their main responsibility whilst running micro-enterprises to support the family fnancially, when necessary. Women tend to participate in trading activities, and at the time of this study, they made up 72% of traders at the village level, while 28% were men (PIAV, 2018). Traders are typically micro-entrepreneurs, such as stallholders and street vendors, who sell a range of products including groceries, fsh processed foods, snacks, and beverages. In interviews, many women traders expressed their preference for being stallholders or street vendors as a way of helping the family's fnancial situation while managing their domestic duties. Some of the women managed these responsibilities by bringing their children to work with them and letting them play around their stalls. Some children on the Island, especially adolescent girls, were also seen helping their mothers to look after their stalls and helped to serve foods and drinks when customers visited the shops. One female trader recalled a similar experience of how, when she was a child, she had helped her mother with her selling activities:

Since I was a kid my mother had taught me to sell, walking around the island after school, and before school; I was selling fried banana, traditional cakes; even now I'm passionate about selling. (Female 2, Trader)

No women, however, were seen working as fshers. The gendered notions of fshing activity vary across coastal communities in Indonesia. For instance, women in Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia, similar to women in Pramuka Island, consider fshing atypical and even taboo for women. But in other parts of the country, such as in Hitu Village, Ambon, and Kalibuntu Village, East Java, women go fshing in the ocean with rods or even plunge into the sea to fnd snails (Indrawasih, 2015).

In terms of the role of women and men in public debates and discussions, both women and men in Pramuka Island appeared to participate in public discussions and trainings provided by the local government. From our interviews, we learned that several trainings had been organized by the government, such as cooking training for women, fsh cultivation training for men, and tourism-related training for both. Despite the opportunities provided for women to attend public discussions and trainings, several women respondents expressed some constraints in participating at such meetings, especially when they also had multiple duties of rearing children and working as traders. A woman trader stated:

The cooking training is often organised by the village government, they bring trainers from Jakarta, like a teacher, supervisor, in the feld of cooking, and then we (women) in the neighbourhood will get a call. That (training calls) depends on the type of discussion itself, like fsh cultivation, males; cooking, females; tourism, both male and female … I didn't get involved in the discussion, it was males … I also had to sell my stuff around the village, I had no time for the discussion sometimes. (Female 3, Trader)

These differences in gender roles, occupations, and practices evident in Pramuka Island have implications for how climate change-related impacts may affect men and women. Women's inability or reluctance to participate in training activities and public discussions, as seen in our interviews, reveal the pressures on their time as they balance multiple commitments of domestic responsibilities and incomegenerating activities. It also indicates the potential challenges of ensuring women's participation in other important activities, such as those involving governance and decision-making – deemed essential to bring about transformative change in society (see Kronsell, 2013).

### *5.5.2 Gendered Impacts of Reduced Fish Stock and Changing Weather Patterns*

The Seribu Islands, like the rest of the country, have experienced decades of unsustainable development, as evident in the case of marine resources management (see Fauzi & Buchary, 2002). Under a political regime marked by "corruption, collusion and nepotism," "resources were heavily exploited, destructive fshing practices were widely used, and widespread degradation of the marine areas occurred" (ibid., p. 168). The continuation of many of these practices and their consequences are evident in Pramuka Island even now.

**Impacts on Women** In relation to fsh resources in the Island, both women and men have noticed a decline in fsh stock in recent years. This reduction has impacted livelihoods along gender lines. For example, in interviews, women referred to the impacts of fsh stock depletion on their livelihood in terms of their fnancial stability and greater pressures on their time. The lack of fsh stocks has reduced women traders' ability to supplement their incomes through selling of processed fsh products in their stalls. In addition, the reduced fsh catch has an impact on their domestic roles (especially the wives of fshermen), such as the food they cook for the family. Whereas previously they used to serve fsh for their families from their husband's fsh catch on a regular basis, they now often have to buy fsh. Female respondents expressed how the fsh depletion on the island impacted their livelihood, as follows:

When they (fshermen) don't go fshing and don't get money, they will be reluctant to buy anything, maybe that's how it works, like today the selling is low. (Female 2, Trader)

When the fsh are lacking, like this time around, I don't have fsh supply to sell (fsh-based food products). I usually buy directly from fshermen, clean the fsh, and put it in the refrigerator, it will stay good for 1 month, and I can sell open fre grilled fsh for tourists. When I don't have stock of fsh, well … (Female 3, Trader)

**Destructive Fishing Practices** For fshermen, the decrease in fsh stocks in Pramuka Island had an impact on their fshing practices and the time they needed to catch fsh. They were concerned about their income declining as the result of fsh depletion and, hence, changed their fshing practices to attempt to stabilize their income. For example, they went fshing in areas that were farther from their own island (across provincial borders) and also tried to catch as many fsh species as possible. These strategies, however, required some fshermen to spend more time on the ocean to fnd fsh to catch (staying away overnight).

In addition, many of the fshermen we interviewed also elaborated on the use of harmful fshing practices by some fshers. They admitted that some fshermen on the Island were still using destructive fshing gear in order to obtain higher catch and incomes. The depletion of fsh stocks in Pramuka Island combined with the use of

harmful fshing equipment (such as potassium and *muro-ami* net2 ) have put fshermen in a vulnerable situation through the lower fsh catches and undermined people's income and well-being. One male fsher respondent described the implications of reduced income for family dynamics, with greater stress that comes from being unable to support the family including the possibility that women may divorce their husbands if they could not maintain an adequate income. This concern contributes to many fshermen's willingness to use harmful, but cheaper, fshing methods to earn more income, such as using decompressors as a substitute for an oxygen tank while diving despite knowing that it could harm their own physical health. Research on the use of decompressors for diving equipment among Jakarta and Seribu Island fshermen found that over 50% of the fshermen had experienced decompression sickness (DCS) in the form of headache, vertigo, movement dysfunction, visual disturbance, chest pain, vomiting, joint pain, neurological dysfunction, nausea, or convulsions, after they had used it three or more times a day (Wahab et al., 2008). A male fsher respondent referred to the experiences of another fsherman, as follows:

Mr. Sarip's son was tempted by the money he would get by using it (muro-ami net and decompressor). The boss said, "I'll pay you this much just to dive and get fsh", and after he dived (using decompressors), he got paralysed. Did the boss want to take the responsibility for it? No, I've paid you, he's paralysed until now, and he got divorced by his wife, I feel sorry for him, and he's got one child. (Male 9, Fisherman)

**Seasonal Changes** Beyond the aforementioned hardships and vulnerability of fshermen in Pramuka Island as a result of fsh resource depletion, fshermen spoke about their perceptions of changes in weather and seasonal patterns that seemed to affect their fshing practices. They referred to unpredictable weather changes and believed the intensity and frequency of storms and cyclones had become stronger compared to their recollection of the past.  As one fsherman said:

In the past there were less (storms), and the wind had its own path … But now, sometimes the wind comes from the south and then hits from the west, like that … When we go fshing that could be troublesome, we could be trapped on the ocean. … My friends experience that one time, their boat was gone, only them with foats, thank God they were safe … (Male 9, Fisherman)

Aside from the fshery sector, changes in weather patterns affect the sustainability of trading activities, predominantly run by women who have few options other than trading because of their modest educational levels (Indrawasih, 2015; Babbitt et al., 2015). On Pramuka Island, women who ran stalls as a source of secondary income for their families normally began work early morning and fnished in the afternoons,

<sup>2</sup>Pursell (2002) depicts muro-ami as a system of drive-in net fshing that involves encircling net together with pounding devices to scare fsh into bag nets. The devices are pounded of the midlevel fsh that school above the reef and bottom dwelling fsh which can severely damage coral reefs.

although this would be extended during periods when there were many tourists arriving on the island.

Many of the women respondents referred to how changes in climate variables such as rainfall and seasonal patterns, and also some climate change-related hazards, including cyclones, strong winds and storms, impacted their stalls' physical condition as well as their trading activities. For example, unseasonal weather patterns, including unexpected rains and storms, have led to the postponement of the production of commodities they sell, such as fsh crackers and seaweeds. One woman trader explained this as follows:

It (the uncertain weather pattern) affects the production of my supplies, like when I'm making fsh crackers, it needs a dry weather to dry them, because I use the sun to dry the crackers. When the weather is rainy and season is uncertain, it makes the process diffcult … so I have to postpone the process. (Female 5, Trader)

Moreover, women traders believed that the changing intensity and frequency of storms and cyclones had had a negative impact on the physical condition of their stalls, especially stalls that were made out of delicate materials such as bamboo and fabrics. Recent tornadoes in Pramuka Island were identifed by the respondents as having a higher intensity of wind, compared to their past experiences of tornadoes. Respondents refected on the most recent strong winds on the island and how they differed from previous cases:

Now it (storm) is more often compared to the past; that February storm was the worst, I've never seen a big storm like that since I was a kid, I've just seen big waves, usually in December, but that's all, not with strong wind like it was in February. (Female 3, Trader)

Usually the wind was far, we could see the wind running on the ocean. Because it was distant, the storms didn't get a chance to go to the island … Now it's almost every year, since 2010, usually it's a tornado. In this island alone, there was a huge one in 2016, it destroyed the quayside's canopies, it was a tornado. Also, there was another tornado in 2017, all these stalls were wiped out, there, in front of those stalls, they were hit by the tornado. (Male 1, Fisherman)

Their statements are reinforced by reports from Hamonangan (2017) and Pribadi (2018), which reported the occurrence of strong winds and a tornado in December 2017 and February 2018 on the island. The report states that while bad weather is normal in Pramuka Island and its surroundings, the intensity of the winds has been stronger than usual lately. The high frequency and intensity of the strong winds have damaged infrastructure on Pramuka Island and caused fnancial loss from the damage. Such intense weather events consequently affected the women traders' ability to earn an income, as their shops were unable to operate during the period of wind and during the repairing of the physical damage. However, some women tried to sell their goods by using other techniques, which were considered to be more time and energy consuming, for instance, through pushing a cart.

My stall was on the tree (blown by the wind) … I did not open my shop for 3 months, because of the wind … We are human, so use our brain to do something, I pushed cart to sell around the village, sell anything, coffee, instant noodles, anything. (Female 7, Trader)

From the view of female traders in Pramuka Island, climate change-related risks, including stronger and more frequent storms and uncertain weather patterns, have built up additional challenges to their daily life. The uncertain weather patterns have interrupted their commodity production schedule, while the intensifed storms have demolished many women's stalls, with implications for women's income and time.

From the above discussion, it is evident that both women and men in the Pramuka Island are affected by the changes to seasonal weather patterns, which are likely to be linked to climate change-related impacts. While fsh stocks are undoubtedly affected by the widespread use of destructive fshing practices (Fauzi & Buchary, 2002), climate change-related factors such as changing rainfall patterns, intensifcation of storms, and warming sea temperatures can affect both fshing practices and fsh stocks. The reduction in fsh catch has gender-specifc impacts, negatively affecting women's and men's occupations, income-earning capacity, and their marginalization and vulnerability.

### **5.6 Analysis and Policy Implications**

The gendered implications of climate change for Pramuka Island society are mirrored in other societies elsewhere in the world, although conceptions of gender vary across place and time and rely on the subjective and cultural meanings specifc to a society (Kimmel, 1986). Nagel (2017) argues that the differentiated impacts and outcomes of climate change for men and women occur as a result of gender roles, citing examples from climate-related hazards in multiple countries, for example, cyclones, global warming, and sea level rise in Bangladesh, Australia, and the United States. In these countries, societal norms that prescribed how women should act had limited the mobility of women, which heightened their vulnerability.

The already vulnerable situation of Pramuka Islanders in consequence of the physical features (a low-lying and small island) and the current situation of environmental degradation, such as the fsh stock depletion, is exacerbated by climate change. Decreased environmental quality can lead to an increased workload for both women and men, as well as an increase in their vulnerability, especially when resources are already scarce (Nelson et al., 2002). It is obviously diffcult to separate the factors that are contributing to the declining fsh population in Pramuka Island, which is one of the most signifcant food and income resources for the fshing community. However, climate-related risks have certainly aggravated the hardship experienced by the community from other environmental pressures on the Island.

In response to the falling fsh stock, the government initiated a number of interventions to help the fshermen. According to the respondents, these included: developing artifcial reefs made from bamboo for fsh to grow, introducing new fshing instruments (sonar space, nets, fshing rod, rope), aquaculture, and mangroves plantation. Viewed as a climate change adaptation response, many respondents recognized them as a positive response to the decline in fsh resources. But many of them expressed concern that policy implementation and access to benefts were often discriminatory and inequitable. In addition, in an attempt to increase local communities' resilience to climate change, the local government has also employed a national climate adaptation program, namely the *Program Kampung Iklim* or Climate Village Programme (CVP). The CVP was launched in 2013 to support local villagers in adapting to the impacts of climate change (MoEF1) and includes assisting communities in building vegetable gardens to increase their food security, developing integrated waste management programs to lower carbon emissions, and organizing climate change awareness raising programs in Pramuka Island (SIEA1).

Although such initiatives hold promise, climate change impacts may pose barriers to women's involvement in collective decision-making in environmental governance due to a lack of available time and other constraints. In the context of Pramuka Island, women's multiple responsibilities on the domestic front and their local trading activities to support their families' fnancial earnings have a knock-on effect on their ability to be involved in community activities, such as village meetings or discussions. Wilkinson and Pratiwi (1995) argue that poor women's greater burdens restrict their ability to obtain information and to contribute to a community forum on environmental decision-making compared to men.

Yet, the signifcance of community participation in decision-making processes concerning development and environmental management has been generally recognized in the country, including in Pramuka Island. According to a representative of the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection of Indonesia, one of the opportunities for community participation in policy-making processes is the annual general meeting (or public hearing) where the government discusses its local development plans with communities at village, sub-district, and district levels (MoWE1). These processes aim to open up discussions for the local communities to contribute and share their views on development programs, including those concerning environmental resource management and climate change. Such public hearings and events are required to have at least 30% of their participants from women's groups (MoWE1). However, she acknowledged that it was diffcult to ensure this given that even when women were present at such forums, they were not used to the processes and often unable to share their opinion (MoWE1). Such a lack of participation as this offcial describes is perhaps a refection of sexist societal norms that devalue women's voices in public forums. It is also evident from this research that women are facing greater pressures on their time from climate change-induced stresses, such as the impact of lower fsh catch and destruction of their stalls because of storms. In attempting to fulfll their domestic responsibilities while expanding their paid work of trading, there appears little time to participate in such government-run planning programs.

The absence of women's voices from such forums is a concern, both in terms of the implications for the substantive quality of policies and strategies developed and for its implications for justice. As widely acknowledged in the scholarship, it is critical to ensure the voices of women are present in processes of local environmental governance. Arora-Jonsson (2012), for example, emphasizes the importance of policymakers understanding how locals, especially women, experience and address

environmental change as it helps them avoid epistemic injustice through undermining knowledge produced by the locals, particularly women. The idea of justice is also highlighted by Moosa and Tuana (2014), who argue that the production and reception of climate change knowledge need to value the views of women for better appreciating the ethical dimensions of climate change. This ensures richer understandings of the impacts of climate change from the point of view of the marginalized groups to allow the formulation of more responsive frameworks in addressing climate change.

Local climate adaptation strategies and policies need to incorporate local perspectives from both women and men in the affected society to be effective. Nelson et al. (2002) argue that environmental change has different impacts on women and men, and the responses to these changes need to be gender-aware to prevent government policies and programs from exacerbating gender inequality within society. Government policies, therefore, need to include careful consideration of societal livelihoods and to consider the outcomes of any policy on gender and power relations in order to design strategies for adaptation that are responsive to the interests and needs of local communities (Nelson et al., 2009). Furthermore, MacGregor (2010) points out the urgency for a critical examination of the masculinist discourses underpinning gender and climate politics "that effectively exclude women from positions of leadership and citizenship and given them a choice of much less attractive discursive categories of victims, saviours or culprits" (MacGregor, 2010, pp. 235–236). She argues that ignoring the gendered discourses of climate change will result in unsustainable, unjust, and insuffcient responses to address the issue. Thus, in developing a plan for adaptation to climate change risks in Pramuka Island, the consideration of women's and men's specifc needs and interests, their lived experiences, and the recognition of the centrality of issues of "values, place, power, and narrative" (Munshi et al., 2020) will help develop more suitable and just strategies to reduce the negative impacts of climate change.

### **5.7 Conclusion**

The fndings from this study, showing how changes to resource availability and management and seasonal variability had distinct impacts and implications for women and men, are valuable for developing adaptation strategies to deal with climate change risks that are sensitive to local gender needs. The gender analysis revealed that women and men in Pramuka Island are not affected by the risk of climate change in the same manner, given their gender-differentiated forms of employment. For example, the reduction in fsh stock over recent years has affected women and men differently with women traders unable to produce and sell fsh products in their stalls. Men, on the other hand, have attempted to compensate for the depleting fsh stocks by traveling further and spending more time at sea to increase their catch, while also resorting to more harmful fshing practices that negatively affected both their health and the coral reefs. This research also identifed the shifts in fshermen's

fshing practices caused by the changing weather patterns and intensifed natural/ human-induced hazards. For women, however, these changes in weather affected their ability to sustain their trading activities given the demolition of their stalls during intense storms. Perhaps the most signifcant aspect of such differential impacts of climate change risks is that with increasing responsibilities to ensure the sustenance of their families, women have less time to participate in public discussions and community-level activities.

This study also provides insight into the complexity of climate change impacts on local communities, as many social factors intersect in shaping the experience of people toward climate change-related risks. There is increasing evidence demonstrating the importance of focusing on local adaptation contexts in addressing climate change issues. By focusing research, policy interventions, and governance more broadly on climate change to the specifcs of particular places, we can incorporate the complexity of social structures, cultures, and values that exist within communities. Therefore, when developing climate change adaptation strategies for communities, the views and experiences of local women and men are critical to identifying the most appropriate ways in which to adapt to the changes because women and men often have different roles, values, and knowledge. It is also important to recognize that despite such differences, this research highlighted how climate change impacts affected family units, rather than men and women individually. For example, low fsh catch translates to lower volumes of trading, which has implications for the income and economic sustainability of families. So, for climate adaptation strategies to work, men and women have to devise collective strategies. Such strategies require, most fundamentally, policymakers to recognize that meaningful action on climate change calls for systemic change by rethinking traditional, masculinist, and economistically informed approaches to development by centering gender and culture in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Ultimately, a commitment by the state to gender equity in political institutions by ensuring women's leadership and participation in democratic governance and policy decision-making at a multifaceted level is critical to creating inclusive and gender-sensitive policies on climate change that are responsive to individuals' and communities' specifc needs and interests.

### **References**

**Tri Saputro** is currently an offcer at the Environment Division of the ASEAN Secretariat. He obtained his master's degree in Environment and Society from the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and has presented his work at conferences, including the New Zealand Political Studies Association Conference. His areas of specialization and interests include gender and environment, climate change, and international development.

**Priya Kurian** is a professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research examines critical questions of gender, culture, race, and class in the quest for sustainability. She has published six books, including *Public Relations and Sustainable Citizenship* (2021), *Engendering the Environment? Gender in the World Bank's Environmental Policies* (2019), and Climate Futures: Re-imagining Global Climate Justice (2019). Her work has also appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits 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.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **Chapter 6 Coastal Forest Re-Grabbing: A Case from Langkat, North Sumatra, Indonesia**

### **Dedi S. Adhuri, Imam Syaf'i, Atika Zahra Rahmayanti, Intan Adhi Perdana Putri, and Mochammad Nadjib**

**Abstract** Grabbing in its various forms, such as land and maritime grabbing, has been a global concern. This is not only because it happened in many places but also the negative impacts on local people and the environment were often severe. Studies found that millions of local people were excluded from their access to resources they depended upon for decades or even generations. In some places, environmental impact occurred beyond the ability of the ecosystem to recover. This paper will also deal with the above issues. Nonetheless, while most studies focus on grabbing and their socio-environmental impacts, this paper will demonstrate the process of "regrabbing." This is how local community supported by NGOs and other agencies took back the control over the coastal mangrove forest taken and converted by a private company for palm oil plantation. This paper will explain the process and strategies employed by coastal communities in Langkat, North Sumatra, in resisting the palm oil plantation's presence that has impacted their fshing and coastal livelihoods seriously. Interestingly, one of the strategies was "destroy and rehabilitate." This is the destruction of coastal dikes and palm oil trees and the reestablishment of the mangrove forest. This strategy bears two results. The frst is the recovery of the ecosystem, which supports the redevelopment of coastal livelihoods, the old and

D. S. Adhuri (\*)

I. Syaf'i Politics Research Center, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2P-LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia

A. Z. Rahmayanti Research Center for Economic on Nation Research and Innovation Agency Republic of Indonesia (BRIN), Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
I. A. P. Putri

M. Nadjib Economic Research Center, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2E-LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia

© The Author(s) 2023

Society & Culture Research Center, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PMB-LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia

Population Research Center, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2K-LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
A. Triyanti et al. (eds.), *Environmental Governance in Indonesia*, Environment & Policy 61, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15904-6\_6

new. Second is the acknowledgment from the government on the fact that communities have rehabilitated the coastal mangrove well. This, in turn, has stimulated government to grand the communities the *Hak Perhutanan Sosial* (Social Forestry Right) to manage the designated forest. In conclusion, this paper will argue despite the fact that in most cases grabbing left the community and environment as the lost parties, with certain strategies the reality can be turned back for the favor of the communities and the environment.

**Keywords** Grabbing · Re-grabbing · Coastal forest · Langkat · Indonesia

### **6.1 Introduction**

Land grabbing in various regions of the world targets forest areas and agricultural lands. Furthermore, it is considered a solution to the global food and fnancial crisis (GRAIN, 2008; Dell'Angelo et al., 2018). Multinational corporations, countries, and international fnancial institutions collaborate to increase efforts aimed to capitalize and privatize land management for both food and energy needs, as well as global fnancial strengthening.

GRAIN recorded 416 lands grabbing cases by foreign investors in 66 countries, which were carried out to enable the production of food. Furthermore, the land obtained amounted to 35 million hectares. Ecoruralis, an NGO based in Romania, provides a critical note that is not only limited to this problem but also talks about the grabbing of forest areas by extractive wood processing industries, mining companies, privatization of water sources, and expansion of palm oil plantations (Baker-Smith & Attila, 2016). This then minimizes the opportunities and access of the community to natural resources by changing the communal management of these resources (public goods) into commercial commodities (private goods).

Capitalization causes confictual relations between state and corporations, which lead to the emergence of an elite minority group that manages the natural resources in the community (Baker-Smith & Attila, 2016, p. 5). In Indonesia, land grabbing is part of an agrarian confict and has been going on for many years. The collaboration of state, corporations, and traditional elites since the colonial era has resulted in encroachment on agricultural land and introduction of commercial agriculture (Breman, 1986; Zanden & Marks, 2012) due to the expansion of palm oil plantations in the New Order authoritarian era (AGRA, 2010; KPA, 2018). Furthermore, it is believed that this is the right way to increase the economic value of the society, as well as absorb labor (Colchestester et al., 2006; Tadjoeddin, 2007).

Until 2008, the estimated land occupied by palm oil plantations was 14.33 million hectares, most of which (7.8 million hectares) were controlled by corporate groups (Directorate General of Plantations, 2018, p. 4). Furthermore, these groups were considered destructive because they accelerated the deforestation rate, marginalized communities, eliminated livelihood sources (Tadjoeddin, 2007; Aditjondro, 2011; Syaf'i, 2016), and caused many agrarian conficts (KPA, 2018). The 2018 Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) report stated that 83 cases or about 60% of conficts occur due to the expansion of palm oil plantation land permits that violate community rights to their land (KPA, 2018).

Land grabbing cases due to this expansion also occurred in Lubuk Kertang Village. It was carried out by encroaching on mangrove forests and has been going on for many years, even since the colonial era. In the early days, it was caused by the existence of oil and gas exploration activities, charcoal industry, and intensive shrimp farming, as well as the presence of palm oil plantation industries. This caused the elimination of livelihood sources, as well as led to conficts involving subsistence small fshing communities and large corporations.

Due to the fact that the fshing community suffered from the conversion activities, they fought back in other to grab back the source of their livelihood. In the early days, the resistance movement was carried out sporadically, was disorganized, and only led to the replanting of mangrove trees in areas that had not been cultivated by the company. Furthermore, it was initiated by village community leaders and began to get the attention of younger groups, even though it was not suffciently able to stop the rate of forest destruction and restore lost sources of livelihoods. In the last 10 years or so, this movement gets stronger, as the youth groups are now connected with several NGO networks, and are able to mobilize the strength of the fshing community; therefore, they can regain "grab-back" access to the forest area. In this context, this chapter will explain how the "grab-back" process is carried out. In-depth interviews, observations, and focus group discussions (FGDs) with actors were carried out to understand the processes and roles in consolidating resistance, which ultimately succeeded in not only regaining access to mangrove forests but also being recognized by the state through social forestry schemes. Furthermore, this research also determines the extent to which this access gives them the opportunity to rehabilitate, conserve, and restore the livelihoods of fshing communities.

### **6.2 General Social–Political Context**

In Indonesia, land grabbing has been going on since the colonial era, especially after the Agrarische Wet (AW) publication in 1870. Agrarische Wet then became the basis for economic liberalization policies that opened opportunities for corporations to increase the productivity of export crops (commercial agriculture). Furthermore, it has resulted in the rapid conversion of land for plantations, especially in Java and Sumatra.

The land grabbing process continued until post-independence, especially in the New Order era (1967–1998). During this period, land change, which was later indicated as land grabbing, was carried out through methods such as Green Revolution scheme, Business Use Rights (HGU), Forest Planning Rights (HPH), Industrial Plantation Forests (HTI), national park area determination, land tenure mining through the contract of work mining concessions, as well as concentration of land control for infrastructure development, including that of the military, and

settlements (property) (Alliance for Agrarian Reform Movement, 2010). This land grabbing activity began around the 1970s and greatly increased later on due to that massive land changes could not be separated from the transmigration program, which became the world's attention in the 1980s (Pagiola, 2000). Furthermore, transmigration involves the relocation of residents, especially from the Java and Bali islands to other areas such as Sumatra and Kalimantan, and it has an impact on forest clearing for agriculture and plantation businesses. The success of this program then prompted many other spontaneous transmigrants to move along.

Pagiola (2000) explained that in the 1980s, the government began to implement a diversifcation policy for commodities other than oil and gas by increasing expansion in plantation crops. This is made possible by the existence of a centralized state policy that regulates forest area management through the Industrial Tree Crop Estate (HTI). HTI initially used degraded land, but in practice many companies holding concessions carried out encroachment on forest areas. For the government, forest conversion for palm oil plantations is considered an alternative way to increase the economic value of the community because of its ability to absorb a lot of labor (Colchestester et al., 2006; Tadjoeddin, 2007).

In line with the changes in centralized government characteristics, Law No. 22 of 1999 as amended by Law No. 32 of 2004 concerning regional governance allows forest areas to be managed region by region. This aims to provide wider opportunities for regions to organize themselves based on the principles of equality, justice, and diversity in order to realize regional welfare. However, the decentralization practice as a manifestation of democratization and globalization has actually created contestation between elites at the national and local levels in fghting over access to natural resource management (Hadiz, 2010).

Land concession permits are increasingly issued by local governments and tend to be uncontrolled, therefore resulting in an increasing rate of deforestation. The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) report stated that investment licensing in the natural resources sector is most often issued before the local electoral event. Furthermore, it stated that the gratifcation practice by regional heads to fulfll high political costs ahead of local elections is directly proportional to the number of regional heads that have been caught in a sting operation (OTT) by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) (Kompas, 2017).

Decentralized practices in Indonesia ultimately tend to be directly proportional to the increase in deforestation rate. This is due to the fact that many regional heads opt for fast ways to beneft from forest utilization, including through mining, plantation, energy, and infrastructure permits. The aspect of sustainability, which is part of the aims of decentralization, has been ignored; therefore, it not only causes ecological disasters but also increases social conficts. This extreme situation then forced the government to restructure decentralization practices through a law on new local governments (Law No. 23 of 2014).

In Law No. 23/2014, the governor as a representative of the central government becomes a central point of forestry affairs where the district/city government no longer has authority except for the management of the Grand Forest Park (Tahura). Considering that forestry management in this law has moved to the province, several authorities related to proposals and technical considerations also fall under the province authority. After the implementation of this law, all forest management functions at the site level came under FMU management, starting from planning and implementing activities for utilization, rehabilitation, forest protection, and conservation. FMUs also carry out a service function to the community for utilization of forest resources (Putro & Nawir, 2018), including being responsible for resolving problems, such as conficts and third-party rights claims (Steni, 2016). In this context, the absence of authority possessed by the district/city government makes them tend to be apathetic and unwilling to be responsible for issues on natural resource management in their area (Putro & Nawir, 2018).

During the decentralization period, collaboration between the State, corporations, and international fnancial institutions allowed for the massive expansion of palm oil plantation concessions. This situation places Indonesia as one of the countries with the largest palm oil plantation area, reaching 14.33 million hectares (Indonesian Plantation Statistics, 2018). However, this expansion not only increases deforestation rates but also marginalizes community groups, eliminates livelihoods, and creates potential conficts (Tadjoeddin, 2007). The Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) report stated that in 2018, there were 410 cases of agrarian conficts in various provinces in Indonesia, with the most (35%) occurring in the plantation industry. Furthermore, of all the plantation-related confict cases, as many as 60% occurred as a result of the expansion of this plantation's land permits, which violated the community's rights to their land (The Consortium for Agrarian Reform, 2018).

In North Sumatra, the expansion of the palm oil plantation industry has resulted in forest destruction and scarcity of local foodstuffs and threatens the existence of protected animals (Aditjondro, 2011). The coastal forest areas of the Lubuk Kertang Village, West Brandan District, which is located in the Langkat Regency, North Sumatra, is one of the areas where mangrove forests have been converted into palm oil plantations. This conversion, including the utilization of forest lands for the development of shrimp ponds in the 1980s, has been going on for many years, according to various historical records. The results of the research conducted by Basyuni et al. (2018) show that during the 1990–2006 period, 51.5 ha of mangrove forest lands were converted into shrimp ponds. However, over time, the ponds managed by communities did not yield much profts; therefore, they went bankrupt. Also, those owned by individuals were sold off illegally to palm oil plantation companies because the business lands were state forest areas.

The expansion of the mangrove charcoal company by PT Sari Bumi Bakau, which began in 1999, has further increased the rate of destruction of mangrove area. Although in 2006 the company was closed by the Ministry of Forestry, Indonesia, it sold off its mangrove forest concession to an palm oil plantation company. This company then expanded into the register 8/L area, which is a protected area that has been established since the Dutch colonial era. Therefore, its activities greatly disrupt the villagers and their surroundings, whose source of livelihood is fshery.

Lubuk Kertang is not a homogeneous village because it has a lot of potential that has not been utilized optimally, including rainfed rice felds and mangrove areas besides palm oil plantations that have recently emerged (Lubuk Kertang Village Profle, 2018). This mangrove has great potential as fshermen in this village depend on it for their economic resources directly or indirectly (Sari, 2012). Its direct benefts are that it serves as a nursery, feeding, and spawning ground for various types of fsh, shrimp, and other marine biotas, as well as being a supplier of fsh larvae, shrimp, and a site for tourism. At the same time, its indirect benefts are that it serves as a storm and wave breaker, offers protection against abrasion, and is a mud retardant, a natural flter for organic waste, and a sediment trap (Arief, 2003). The presence of palm oil plantations in areas that were initially part of this forest has marginalized community livelihoods, as villagers use the tributaries (*paluh*) that fow in it as a source of wealth. *Paluh* is a breeding ground for marine life, such as various types of fsh, shrimp, and mangrove crabs, which have high economic value, and fshing in it is an activity that has been carried out by the coastal community of this village for many generations.

Land grabbing involved logging of mangrove forests to be replaced by palm oil plantation. In order to maintain the survival and extent of palm oil plantations, companies seal creek*s* (*paluh*) by making embankments to block seawater fow to the plantation area. These embankments are usually of heights ranging from 2 to 4 m, with widths of about 4–6 m. The problem is that this closure causes the creation of seawater puddles when the tide rises. Previously, the occurrence of rising tides only entered the *paluh* and inundated the mangrove swamp, while bringing various marine biota, which then reproduced. The overfowing water that was held back by the embankment fowed to a lower landscape, hence inundating residential areas and the rice felds. In 2009, the impact of this event was felt greatly by communities, especially the Lubuk Kertang village, as there was serious fooding due to the massive expansion of palm oil plantations (Ompusunggu, 2018). This land grabbing phenomenon changes the community's economic structure, as most of the villagers depend on fshing businesses. Logging of mangrove forests and closing of *paluh* by creating embankments have changed the coastal ecosystem, as well as caused loss of livelihood for fshermen. Furthermore, agricultural areas around *Paluh* often experience crop failures when high tides occur.

Mangrove forests that previously protected agricultural areas have disappeared, causing intrusion and standing of seawater that has damaged rice plants. This has led to the scarcity of economic resources and, consequently, the emergence of social problems such as the development of client–patron relationships. Due to poor economic conditions, small fshermen are often indebted to the business owners, and this has led to the creation of asymmetrical relationships. According to Kusnadi (2000), this relationship can easily turn into a means of dominance and exploitation. Another option is that when fshing or farming does not provide the necessary funds for day-to-day activities, some villagers choose to become workers in palm oil plantations, which is relatively new to them, while some others choose to migrate to cities, where they carry out odd jobs, as unskilled labor, since they lack crucial skills.

### **6.3 The Development of Palm Oil Plantation and the Socio-ecological Impacts: The Grabbing**

The mangrove forest conversion in Lubuk Kertang Village has been going on for a long time, even since the pre-independence era. Furthermore, the exploration of oil and natural gas carried out by the colonial government is an early marker of this conversion activity. Until today, the state oil and gas company, Pertamina, controls the area. In more recent times, land conversion in this area, which led to land grabbing activities, began in 1986 with the creation of shrimp ponds (Saragih, 2018). However, these ponds did not yield much proft; therefore, their production went on a steep decline, and this caused many farmers to sell off their ponds to palm oil plantation companies.

Almost simultaneously with the shrimp pond expansion, mangrove areas were also converted for charcoal-making industrial activities. The company that has obtained the concession permit is Sari Bumi Bakau Ltd. (PT. SBB), and through the decree from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, which is now the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, with Number 934/kpts-II/1999, this company obtained a Business License for the Utilization of Timber Forest Products in Plantation Forests (IUPHHK-HT), formerly known as forest concessions (HPH). Furthermore, on October 14, 1999, it obtained a mangrove forest concession covering an area of 20,100 ha, out of which 155.2 ha were in Lubuk Kertang Village (Saragih, 2018). The expansion of this company then caused mangrove forests deforestation in Langkat Regency to become more widespread, and it has even occupied an area that was initially an animal reserve (Sonjaya, 2007). This was carried out because the raw material for making charcoal from mangrove logs in their concession area had run out; therefore, the area needed to be expanded.

In Lubuk Kertang Village, the company that "bought" the concession was KUD Harapan Sawita, occupying a land area of approximately 850 ha. Furthermore, another company, by the name, Pelita Nusantara Sejahtera Ltd. (PNS), also received a concession area of 42 ha. Both companies obtained land from a sale made by KUD Mina Murni (Saragih, 2018). In the past, the land was not obtained through this means. It was got when citizen identities (KTP) were obtained and used to claim the 2 ha of land due to each of them. In addition, any citizen who was able to claim back the land was compensated with 2–3 million rupiah. This is supported by Onirizal (2015) who states that the company's main mode is to take advantage of community claims toward inherited land, which is then sold to them regardless of the area being considered a protected forest. Meanwhile, the practice of collecting KTP is carried out by KUD Mina Murni in order to give the impression that the village head and residents are legalizing the sale of the land, which in fact belongs to the state.

The success of this practice then perpetuates the palm oil company from completely converting mangroves into plantation areas. This was followed by a dambuilding activity by the company to prevent seawater from entering the acquired forests, which are now occupied by palm trees. Consequently, this practice has certainly disrupted the ecological system on the coast of the village and has caused fsh and crustacean resources therein to decrease signifcantly. This is felt by the fshing community not only in this village but also in the surrounding villages that depend on proceeds from fshing in the mangrove area. Preceding this conversion, fshermen were able to earn up to 2–5 million rupiah monthly, but as it stands, they only earn about 500 thousand rupiah. Some of them were even forced to migrate to Aceh Province and work in the informal sectors.

Fishermen were not the only ones to suffer from this conversion, and forest honey seekers also had their fair share. According to Azhar, a community leader, before the expansion of palm oil plantations, forest honey seekers could produce about 200–300 l of honey yearly. As an additional note, the destruction of mangrove forests in Lubuk Kertang Village not only eliminated their livelihood source but also caused the food disaster in 2009 (Ompusunggu, 2018). This food made the community more aware that their environment had been damaged due to the mangrove forest conversion to palm oil plantations.

### **6.4 Community Resistance to Palm Oil Plantations: Coastal Re-Grabbing**

The mangrove conversion has an impact to the fshermen livelihoods not only in Lubuk Kertang Village but also in other villages such as Perlis, Klantan, Lubuk Kasih, Sungai Bilah, Brandan Barat, and Pangkalan Batu. These communities live across three sub-districts, namely Brandan Barat, Sei Lepan and Babalan Subdistrict. After large-scale land conversion, fshermen's income decreased dramatically, as well as some other livelihood sources such as forest honey seeking and farming due to seawater intrusion and tidal fooding. This triggered the migration of some of these individuals to other areas, especially in big cities in Sumatra, to become unskilled laborers or rickshaw drivers.

The coastal ecosystem damage and the loss of livelihood sources have made the communities that depend on mangrove forests to fght back. This resistance involved not only the individuals that chose to remain in the communities but also those that had migrated to the big cities. They all teamed up to be involved in the "grab-back" movement of the mangrove areas controlled by the company. In this context, the resistance carried out by fshing communities is part of postcolonial environmentalism. Cao (2015) stated that postcolonial environmentalism is a citizen's struggle to get out of poverty that occurs in the southern region due to the transnational economy expansion from the north.

Initially, the resistance movement did not directly challenge the company. It was carried out clandestinely and individually by the cutting down of grown palm oil trees, or the entering of mangrove areas controlled by companies, in order to fnd old commodities, such as crab, shrimp, and fsh (interview with Azhar Kasim, 2018). Scott (1976) mentioned that it was the daily resistance of a person or farmer groups, or in this case fshermen, against corporate and state hegemony that threatens their subsistence economic structure. Another form of resistance was the mangrove rehabilitation in concession areas, which had not been cultivated by the company. Abdul Jalil and Amat Ali are two community leaders that started voluntarily rehabilitating mangroves in damaged areas. This was carried out to overcome the direct impacts of conversion such as seawater intrusion, tidal fooding, sedimentation, and the loss of livelihood sources (interviews with Amat Ali and Hadian, 2018). However, these rehabilitation efforts have not been able to stop the mangrove destruction rate.

Inspired by these two fgures, the community then began to gain strength by establishing groups to increase the rate of rehabilitation. The Mekar and Keluarga Bahari Mangrove Farmer Groups were established in 2005 and 2007 respectively, became the forerunners of groups that gained access to forest management through social forestry schemes. These two groups then continued to control the rehabilitation movements by involving many other stakeholders. In the end, the rehabilitation efforts carried out by the community were not optimal for restoring the mangrove forest function, at least until 2012. This is because the expansion of palm oil plantations was still ongoing; hence, its ecological impact continued to be felt by the community. This incident prompted two groups, Mekar and Lestari Mangrove, to openly fght against the company. Young fgures such as Hadian (Mekar Group), Azhar Kasim, Tajjrudin, and Rohman (Lestari Mangrove Group) then began to amass mass power and networking, not only with the local government but also with several NGOs involved in advocating for this movement. This context is relevant to Ostrom (1990), as it suggests that in 8 rules managing the common, resource management will work best if it is associated with a larger network. Indeed, for several things, Ostrom stated that resources could be managed locally, but in order to achieve goals in managing common pool resources, including mangrove areas, it is important to create a network in a regional context. Eventually, what these young leaders do is a guarantee to strengthen and ensure that they are involved in managing these mangrove resources.

In the context of the resistance movement, Azhar Kasim and Tajrudin Hasibuan (Indonesian Traditional Fishermen Union/*KNTI*) as well as M Iqbal and Sahrul Pasaribu (North Sumatra *Walhi*/Indonesian Forum for the Environment) were young leaders that were driving for the reorientation of the resistance movement strategy. They already had networks with various stakeholders and succeeded in gathering the masses to carry out direct and open resistance movements against the company. Some forms of resistance that they used include logging of palm oil trees and exploiting mangrove areas controlled by companies that have been quietly abandoned. They then consolidated the fshermen's strength, both nets, torch, ambai, and trawl fshermen that were increasingly pressed due to the mangrove land destruction to seize and restore the socio-ecological functions of the mangrove area.

The resistance leaders did not only succeed in carrying out mass mobilization, but also they succeeded in consolidating networks with several NGOs working on environmental (*Walhi*), coastal community (Kiara and KNTI), and related legal issues (Medan Legal Aid Institute (LBH)) later on. Through this network, from 2009 to 2010, the breakdown of clay dams made by palm oil companies, which had been used to prevent seawater from entering the plantation area, was a manifestation of the resistance to the company. This caused seawater to rise again and kill existing palm trees. These dams were located on the Register 8/L area, which was illegally created by the company. In this case, the networks that were built during the resistance against the company and after are mapped in Fig. 6.1.

The company did not just sit back and watch the resistance groups destroy them. They made efforts to criminalize and intimidate the leaders of the groups. Azhar Kasim, Tajruddin, and Rajali are the fgures reported by the company to the police for damages. However, this did not discourage resistance because the network that had been formed made them strong in dealing with the company. Their resistance was not only limited to mass movements in the feld but also succeeded in raising other issues such as legal issues, community welfare, and the environment. The criminalization of the company against the three fgures was not entirely successful. In 2012, this movement succeeded in re-grabbing a 325-ha mangrove area that was previously an palm oil plantation.

The Mekar group continues to consistently carry out environmental rehabilitation, so also do the other group. A year after being founded, they received assistance from the Forestry and Plantation Service at Langkat Regency through the National Movement for Forest and Land Rehabilitation (Gerhan/GN-RHL) program. This program succeeded in replanting in an area of 25 ha. Two years later, the same program was carried out again in the same area as in 2006. In 2010, this group independently planted on 55 ha of mangrove land. Then in 2012, together with the success of the "grab back," they and the Sumatran Elephant Foundation (Yagasu), a local CSO, returned to planting in the same area, in the previous location. Furthermore, Yagasu helped formulate regulations on village-based mangrove forest

**Fig. 6.1** Mapping of actors is an effort to strengthen community groups in re-grabbing. (Source: Processed based on the results of a focus group discussion with the actors involved and feld observations, 2018)

management, construction of information huts, and the boundaries of the Mangrove Protected Area Forest (DPM). This activity was the beginning of ecotourism development in the mangrove area in this village.

The Keluarga Bahari Mangrove Farmer Group later changed to the Lestari Mangrove Group (2011), and since then, it has been building stronger networks with state institutions. This effort was actually an adaptation to suit the country's structure. The goal was to make obtaining mangrove seeds easy, therefore increasing the ease of rehabilitating the land area ("Azhar Kasim's Testimony," 2017). In its development, especially after the success of the movement, this change was carried out to initiate efforts that grant access to forest management and are legalized by the state through social forestry schemes.

Initially, from a total of 325 ha, which resulted from the "grab-back" movement, in 2012, Lestari Mangrove planted in 25 ha of mangrove, with seeds obtained from BPHM (Mangrove Forest Management Offce) Region II Medan. Rehabilitation then continued in another area of 15 ha with seedlings provided by the Ministry of Environment. The rehabilitation movement continues, and the areas that have been successfully planted have expanded. This is inseparable from many stakeholders that were involved during 2012–2014. Pertamina, for example, the state oil company, helped in planting in an area of 60 ha. Furthermore, another stakeholder, by the name, BPDAS Wampu Sei Ular, helped plant in an area of 183 ha. Also, Kompas-BRI and Pertamina EP did the same in 8 ha. Figure 6.2 shows changes in land conditions from planting seedlings (2012) and conditions in 2018.

The success of the Mekar and Lestari Mangrove Group through young leaders in rehabilitating and reclaiming management of mangrove forest areas has an impact not only on the return of their livelihoods but also on conservation efforts to restore the ecological function of mangrove areas. The group's consistency in rehabilitating, fghting, and utilizing mangrove forests in a sustainable manner then received recognition from the state through granting concessions for mangrove forest management in social forestry schemes. In 2014, the rehabilitation efforts carried out by the community reached 700 ha (interview with Tadjrudin, 2018). Although in records, converted areas between 1999 and 2012 amounted to 7000 ha. Based on the existing condition, there are still many palm oil plantations side by side in contrast to the mangrove forests that have begun to be successfully rehabilitated.

### **6.5 Social Forestry Program: Future Forest Management to Enhance Community Welfare**

Based on the experience in Lubuk Kertang, the community needs a long and tiring struggle in order to gain access to the mangrove forest management in their area. Their resistance to taking back the forest area that has been converted is to restore not only the forest ecological function but also their lost livelihoods. The resistance movement and actions carried out by fshermen's communities in Lubuk Kertang

**Fig. 6.2** Rehabilitation of Mangrove Forest in Lubuk Kertang. (**a**) Land conditions before rehabilitation, (**b**) rehabilitation by planting mangroves in 2012, (**c**) planting yields in 2012 reviewed in 2014, and (**d**) current condition of mangrove forests (2018). (Source: http://mangrovelangkat. blogspot.com/p/perkembangan.html (Mangrove sustainable group archives, fgures, **a**, **b**, and **c**) & author (fgure **d**))

Village provide an understanding that the role of the community in natural resource management can be a solution not only to overcome poverty due to marginalization but also to impact environmental conservation. In line with this, the World Bank (2008) emphasizes the importance of understanding, articulating, and subsequently accommodating local wisdom and traditional institutions in forest governance. To realize this, in 2016, the government through the Ministry of Environment and Forestry launched the social forestry program. This program aims to provide space for community-based forest management to not only improve welfare but also resolve uncertainty and injustice in land tenure, which often creates conficts.