For the past decade, women have consistently shouldered the heaviest burden of environmental destruction. Beyond being indirectly affected, they frequently become direct victims in conflicts over natural resources.
In 2023 alone, the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) recorded at least 11 cases of gender-based violence stemming from conflicts over natural resources and land use. These cases add to 59 unresolved cases from previous years, further extending the suffering of women.
Government-promoted development initiatives cannot be disentangled from the conflicts they generate. Development driven by investor interests ignites socio-ecological fractures within local communities. Data from the Agrarian Reform Consortium (Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria) reveals that between 2015 and 2023, there were 2,939 agrarian conflicts involving 6.3 million hectares of land and affecting 1.759 million families.
These conflicts highlight the state’s tendency to side with capital owners amidst the ongoing global exploitation of natural resources. This issue reached a new level when National Strategic Projects (Proyek Strategis Nasional or PSN) became tools to displace and expropriate living spaces vital for community sustainability, especially for women and their communities.
Strategic projects such as the development of the new capital city Nusantara, food estates, energy infrastructure, and downstream processing have devastated Indonesia’s forests and displaced the communities reliant on them. PSNs have become instruments of domination and forced relocation, leaving communities—especially women and children—facing degraded and uninhabitable environments.
These development projects, touted as government achievements, are primarily aimed at attracting investment. Despite global discourse on sustainable development, the government prioritizes financial gains over a clear and directed vision.
For example, Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming policy focuses solely on increasing the added value of commodities by building nickel smelters. This policy is even packaged as the country’s commitment to energy transition through the promotion of domestic electric vehicle industries. Yet, there is no apparent correlation between the proliferation of nickel smelters and electric vehicle manufacturing.
To date, there is no indication that these downstreaming projects or energy transitions alleviate women’s burdens or promote gender justice. Instead, women in Sulawesi, Maluku, Papua, Kalimantan, and many other regions bear the ecological costs for the government’s glorified downstreaming initiatives.
Without a clear commitment to women and their environments, nickel extraction poses greater risks than traditional mining practices. Disasters and pollution at industrial nickel zones inflict immeasurable losses, triggering a domino effect that, in the long term, exacerbates gender-based violence.
It is therefore not an overstatement when Commissioner Rainy Maryke Hutabarat of Komnas Perempuan equates natural resource conflicts to crimes against humanity. She argues that such conflicts destroy livelihoods, deepen poverty, fracture social bonds, threaten safety and security, and endanger biodiversity and socio-cultural identities.
Looting, sexual exploitation, and other forms of gender-based violence are often overlooked in government calculations and normalized as collateral damage. Disasters caused by humanity’s oppression of nature only deepen pre-existing inequalities, creating new vulnerabilities.
Shifting the Paradigm
Development must originate from a vision of a sustainable future. This can only be achieved by fulfilling basic rights, avoiding excessive exploitation, and ensuring that no one is left behind—including nature itself.
Amid rampant environmental degradation, solidarity between humans and nature must become a new cornerstone of advocacy. The principle of “no one left behind” also requires us not to turn our backs on nature. With the Earth’s resources depleted and women already suffering, what real gains do we achieve from such development?
Drawing on the observations of ecofeminist writer Val Plumwood, natural resource governance in the context of development becomes skewed when states or governments ignore the hidden costs of artificial hierarchies between humans and nature, ultimately leading to socio-ecological crises.
Moving forward, transparency and accountability should extend beyond human benefits to encompass how development activities contribute positively to the environment. Women’s leadership must be prioritized to ensure equitable distribution of benefits and risks in every policy while reducing the power asymmetry between the state and women.
Only by taking these steps can we uphold women’s rights and protect the environment through civilized development. After all, there can be no justifiable gains if they come at the expense of women’s suffering and environmental destruction.
Source: Tempo