Voices from the field 1
Timbulsloko: A village sinking into the sea
Susan Herawati, KIARA, Indonesia
Timbulsloko is a coastal village in northern Java, located in one of Indonesia’s fastest-sinking regions. Seawater intrusion was first recorded in 1990, marking the start of a dramatic transformation of the village’s landscape and livelihoods. By 1995, the sea was rising steadily, climbing an average of 18 centimeters each year between 2002 and 2016. Together with the sinking land beneath, this rise has left much of Timbulsloko permanently underwater. More than 100 hectares of land and between 400 and 1,300 meters of coastline have already vanished, along with many homes.
This is not simply a natural disaster. Industrial expansion has deepened the crisis. After the Lapindo mudflow displaced industries from East Java in 2006, they relocated to Central Java, attracted by lower environmental risks and labor costs. Demak, the district where Timbulsloko is located, quickly developed into an industrial hub. This and the expansion of Tanjung Mas Port worsened the situation. Industries extract massive amounts of groundwater, making the land sink even faster. As a result, floods have become unbearable, and every year more of Timbulsloko disappears.
This slow disaster has transformed the villagers’ way of life. In the 1960s, the coast was covered in rice fields, coconut groves, fruit trees, and vegetable farms. Families thrived on rice, corn, and legumes, and agriculture sustained both diets and incomes. But as the sea swallowed fertile land, farming became impossible. Residents were forced to shift from farming to shrimp and milkfish farming, and now most depend solely on fishing – often under precarious conditions.
The consequences are severe. Falling incomes and food insecurity have left families struggling to survive. What was once a thriving agricultural community now stands on the frontlines of the climate crisis, caught between rising seas and unsustainable development policies that continue to push it further underwater.
Voices from the field 2
Community self-governance of land as a path to climate and gender justice
Massa Koné, UACDDDD, Mali
In Mali, the struggle for land has long been a struggle for dignity. For decades, rural communities, women, and civil society organizations – led by the Union of Associations and Coordinations of Associations for the Development and Defense of the Rights of the Disadvantaged (UACDDDD) – pushed for recognition of their rights. Their persistence bore fruit in 2017, when Mali adopted a historical Agricultural Land Law (LFA), followed by an implementing decree in 2018.
For the first time, rural communities’ customary tenure rights were legally recognized, creating a new framework in Mali’s land governance system that protects communities’ control over their resources. Central to this system are the Village Land Commissions, or COFOVs (commissions foncières villageoises).
The COFOVs are more than legal structures – they are spaces of grassroots democracy. In regions threatened by agribusiness and extractive projects, they return decision-making power to communities, who collectively set the rules for land use, management, and transfer. Women, historically excluded, now take leadership roles, pass on knowledge, and safeguard food sovereignty. Their presence affirms that land justice and gender justice are inseparable.
To date, UACDDDD has supported the creation of COFOVs in over 380 villages through a ten-step participatory process grounded in national law and decades of struggle. By prioritizing women and youth, this approach ensures inclusive, equitable, and peaceful land governance. Importantly, COFOVs defend not only equitable access to land but also collective management of territories based on peasant agroecology.
As the world heads toward COP 30, Mali’s experience offers a vital lesson: climate justice will not emerge from top-down promises, but from communities governing their territories as commons. The COFOVs demonstrate that profound transformation is possible if communities are enabled to govern their lands as a common good, for the future of all.
Voices from the field 3
The healing power of agroecology
Angie Belem Ruiz, Galaxias-UNICAM SURI, Argentina
Agroecological refuge galaxies are collectively managed farms in Argentina, created on land reclaimed from agribusiness. Launched in 2018 by UNICAM SURI (Universidad Campesina – Sistemas Rurales Indocampesinos), the peasant university of the Peasant Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE-VC), they offer refuge, healing, and dignified work to young people, women, gender-diverse people, and migrants facing exclusion, violence, or addiction.
I arrived at Las Galaxias when I was sentenced to prison for being part of a group of young people who had problems with drug addiction in a slum on the outskirts of La Matanza, Buenos Aires. The court sentenced me to five years. At the trial, a coordinator from Las Galaxias asked the judge to let me serve my sentence in one of their communities, working the land instead of being locked up. To my surprise, the judge agreed, allowing me not only to live and work there, but also to have my two youngest daughters with me.
I started by learning how to raise goats with Mabel, a farmer who taught me how to milk, ensure hygiene, cool the milk, and make cheese. Later, I took care of the laying hens: feeding them, giving them water, grazing them, and cleaning their coop. Today, at Galaxia La Dorotea, I take care of sheep and share responsibilities with other young people.
Thanks to this work, my life has been transformed. Producing healthy food and living in community has become therapeutic and educational. I went from being a prisoner to being a coordinator, with organizational and administrative responsibilities.
Agroecology healed me. It restored my dignity, deepened my bond with my daughters, and showed me that cooperation and living in contact with the land can turn despair into hope. For me, the Galaxias are more than a refuge: they are a path to freedom, while healing Mother Earth and building just and sustainable food systems.
Voices from the field 4
Putting people in power
Movement of People Affected by Dams, Brazil
For the past two years in a row, the Brazilian Amazon has experienced the worst droughts in its history. Large rivers such as the Madeira River in Rondônia, the largest tributary of the Amazon River, which reaches a depth of more than 20 meters, fell to less than 25 centimeters in 2024. Throughout this period, traditional and riverside communities (in Portuguese: ribeirinhas) have seen their food and fish production compromised, as well as their access to health, education, and other rights.
The intensification of the climate crisis and, consequently, of extreme events has been happening faster than the state’s response to it. Therefore, while continuing to pressure governments, the affected populations organized in the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) in the region began to organize their own adaptation measures, based on the principle of meeting the needs of the people first and in a collective format.
In Rondônia, as a result of the struggle for climate justice, those affected have achieved the construction of more than 800 systems, networks for water collection, filtration, storage, and distribution, built by the people in a collective effort.
The populations that have historically contributed least to global warming and protect our forests are now not only paying the highest price, but also need to develop solutions without the same conditions. The answer to the crisis we are experiencing lies in putting the people in power and transforming society and development from the ground up.
Water for life!