An island in eastern Indonesia was meant to lead the country’s transition into renewable energy. But nearly a decade later, the “geothermal island” has suspended projects due to local resistance and concerns for justice and safety. Mongabay’s Basten Gokkon reports that, back in 2017, up to 21 geothermal sites were identified on the island of Flores. Backed by international lenders such as the World Bank and the German Development Bank (KfW), the initiative was presented as a global showcase for clean energy. But a recent study found that, eight years later, key projects remain suspended due to sustained resistance from Indigenous Manggarai communities. They described unjust implementation, including health risks from geothermal emissions, threats to farmland, loss of livelihoods, and vague decision-making processes. “In the Flores case, as in many other places, people are not rejecting the energy transition,” said Cypri Jehan Paju Dale, corresponding author of the study and a social anthropologist with Kyoto University in Japan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. “What they reject is when justice is absent and their living space is disrupted.” The conflict has centered on the communities of Wae Sano and Poco Leok, where residents argue the projects threaten their ruang hidup, or living space. This concept goes beyond mere land ownership, encompassing the economic, cultural, and spiritual ties to ancestral graves, ritual sites, and farmland. The resistance gained significant leverage by articulating these concerns through the lens of customary law, or adat. By demonstrating that their ruang hidup was…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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