Environment - Indonesia at Melbourne

Talking Indonesia: environmental activism, the law and SLAPP

Indonesia is home to some of the largest stretches of tropical rainforest left on Earth — and to a growing community of people willing to put themselves on the line to defend it. But across the archipelago, environmental activists are increasingly finding that the sharpest threat they face isn't out in the field. It's in the courtroom.

Redistributing wealth or costs? Why formalising community mining rarely works

Analysis, Environment, Policies

The central question is not whether communities should have access to mining, but whether the state retains the capacity to govern extraction once operations fragment across thousands of sites with uneven technical and environmental standards.

Indonesian prisons are going green. Here’s how to make it work.

Analysis, Environment, Policies

For the Correctional Services Roadmap 2025-2045 to have any real prospect of producing greener, safer and more effective prisons, an urgent rewrite is needed.

Talking Indonesia: Indonesian ecological thinking

Environment, Talking Indonesia

As Indonesia grapples with increasingly frequent climate disasters—from the devastating floods in Sumatra and Aceh to prolonged droughts that affect food security—a new book rejects the usual solutions.

Performative governance: why Raja Ampat still under serious threat from nickel mining

Environment, Policies

Sacrificing ecosystems and people for projected growth in demand for nickel driven by energy transition is unjustifiable. The government must, therefore, provide full and permanent protection for Raja Ampat, as well as for other vulnerable and significant ecosystems, such as small islands.

Talking Indonesia: after the floods

DIsaster, Environment, Talking Indonesia

In late November last year, heavy rainfall brought by Cyclone Senyar saw massive floods and landslides hit large parts of West and North Sumatra and Aceh Province. Over a month later, what is the situation in these affected areas? Just how huge is the scale of this disaster? And how are the people of Aceh coping with yet another massive natural disaster?

The rise of new Muhammadiyah progressives under Prabowo

Environment, Religion, Society

Unlike JIMM activists, these new progressives advocate social and environmental justice and are heavily critical of Muhammadiyah’s venture into mining.

Anti-SLAPP ruling a win for environmental activism in Indonesia

Analysis, Environment, Law

While Indonesia does not have a formal system of judicial precedent like common law countries, this ruling is a landmark, and should be seen as a model by other judges.

Planetary urbanisation: Why Indonesia destroys its green islands to ‘green’ cities elsewhere

Environment

Today, urbanisation occurs on a global scale. It is taking place not only within cities and urban areas but even in many non-city zones that serve as ‘operational landscapes’ for supplying cities’ demands. This concept of ‘planetary urbanisation’ explains how non-urban realms in the Global South have played a strategic role as operational landscapes supporting cities in the Global North.

Posted in: Environment