JAKARTA — Fisherwomen on the north coast of Indonesia’s Java Island are leading the fight against the government’s decision to dredge sea sand for export, warning the activity may exacerbate the impacts of rising sea levels and marine ecological degradation. In May 2023, the Indonesian government issued a regulation that allowed sand extracted from the seabed to be sold abroad, ending a 20-year-old ban on exporting dredged sea sand. The decision was immediately met with widespread criticism, even though officials, including President Joko Widodo himself, claimed the dredging would only take place in open-water marine areas where “natural sedimentation” had occurred, while coastal areas and small islands would be off-limits to the activity. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries issued a follow-up decree, designating seven locations for sea dredging. These sites — mostly in the Natuna Islands off Sumatra, East Kalimantan province in Borneo, and the north Java coast, known as Pantura — cover a combined area about 590,000 hectares (1.45 million acres). The decree would allow up to 17.65 billion cubic meters (623 billion cubic feet) of sand to be extracted. “When we learned that Demak [in Pantura] has been designated [for dredging], we were stunned,” Masnuah, 50, founder of the Puspita Bahari Fisherwomen’s Community in Central Java province, told Mongabay in a recent interview. A woman holds a sign that reads “We need comfort, not dredging” at a protest in Demak, Central Java province, against dredging sea sand for exports. Image courtesy of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post Javan fisherwomen lead fight against marine dredging amid fears of damage first appeared on EnviroLink Network.