Cement and Kendeng Mountains

With the increasing threats of climate change, corporate investment and industrial expansion in the area, women are faced with new challenges in the form of migration and trafficking. The impacts of climate change are charted as follows: decreasing crop yields; threats to food security; increased water stress and drought; increasing fluvial flooding and rainfall; frequent fluvial flooding; an increasing number of tropical cyclones (in certain areas); and rise of sea level affecting livelihood in coastal regions.

For years, a citizens' initiative in the Indonesian Kendeng Karst-Mountain has been fighting against the destruction of their livelihoods by cement factories, among others, a subsidiary of the German HeidelbergCement. The transnational solidarity network Save Kendeng supports the farmers from the Kendeng Mountains.

Women farmers have become a part of the social movement that transpires in North Kendeng Mountains. The position that originally was only complementary in the local economic and political routine has transformed into an important element in determining the motion of the movement being built. Gunarti, one of the women, shares her stories with us.