Placing faith in her last line of defence

The Star

23-04-2025

Natural fort: Pasijah wading through seawater to plant new mangrove saplings. — Reuters
Pasijah, a 55-year-old housewife in Central Java province, wakes up every morning to the sound of the sea. If that sounds idyllic, it is anything but.
Her home is the only one remaining in this part of Rejosari Senik, a small village on Java's northern coast that was once on dry land but is now submerged by water.
Over the past few years, Pasijah's neighbours have abandoned their homes, vegetable plots and rice fields to the advancing sea, but she and her family have no plans to leave.
'I do have every intention to stay here and my feelings for this house remain,' she said in February.
Water laps around the walls of Pasijah's house, where she has lived for 35 years, soaking her feet when she steps outside.
The structure is fenced by haphazard rows of bamboo.
A broken power pole inside the floor has been raised to keep it above the sea.
The nearest land is 2km away and the closest city, Demak, further still at 19km. The only way to get there is by boat.
Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, has about 81,000km of coastline, making it particularly vulnerable to rising seas and erosion.
Sea levels on the country's coasts rose an average of 4.25mm annually from 1992 to 2024.
Pasijah checking mangrove seedlings after they were planted in the hamlet of Rejosari Senik, Demak regency, Central Java province. — Reuters
But the rate has accelerated in recent years, said Kadarsah, a climate change official at Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology, and Geo­physical Agency.
'One of the signs of climate change is the rising sea levels,' he said, adding that some small islands had disappeared.
Kadarsah also pointed to increased pumping of groundwater that has exacerbated land subsidence along Java's northern coast.
The problem is particularly bad in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, which is home to some 10 million people.
Indonesian authorities have turned to megaprojects for a solution, including a 700km sea wall that would run along the northern coast between Banten and East Java provinces.
Pasijah and her family, meanwhile, have turned to nature.
She has planted some 15,000 mangrove trees a year over the past two decades.
Every day, she paddles out in a boat made from a blue plastic barrel to tend to the bushes and plant new saplings, lowering herself into the blue-grey water, which can be as high as her chest.
'The floodwaters come in waves, gradually, not all at once,' Pasijah said.
'I realised that after the waters began rising, I needed to plant mangrove trees so that they could spread and protect the house from the wind and the waves.'
She and her family survive by selling at the nearest market the fish caught by her sons.
They say they will stay as long as they can hold back the tides.
'I'm no longer concerned about how I feel about the isolation here since I decided to stay, so we'll take it one hurdle at a time,' Pasijah said. — Reuters