Rising Tides, Rooted Futures: Fisherwomen Leading Climate and Gender Justice in Demak
Rising Tides, Rooted Futures: Fisherwomen Leading Climate and Gender Justice in Demak is a collaborative initiative between Puspita Bahari, a fisherwomen’s movement in Demak, Central Java, Indonesia, and the GENERATE Project to co-create collective action for gender and climate justice. The initiative builds on and supports Puspita Bahari’s long-standing feminist organising and activism, which has been ongoing since its establishment in 2005.
Launched in September 2025, the initiative focuses on the embodied experiences of fisherwomen and coastal women in facing tidal floods, while strengthening their resilience in responding to the intersecting challenges of climate crisis and gender-based violence (GBV).
The initiative includes participatory mapping of climate change impacts on coastal women, GBV, and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR); creative campaigns to end violence against women; the establishment of women-led waste banks and food resilience gardens; a community festival; and ongoing policy advocacy.
Photographer: Daffa/Demak Berdikari.
Mapping Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and SRHR Impacts of Tidal Flooding
In November 2025, 35 participants from five coastal villages in Demak came together for a two-day Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to share their experiences of living with tidal flooding and its wider impacts. Through participatory discussions, the session explored how environmental changes, such as coastal abrasion, declining fish catches, and increasingly unpredictable flooding, are reshaping everyday life. These challenges are not only ecological but also deeply social and gendered, placing disproportionate burdens on women through increased care work, limited mobility, and heightened vulnerability. Participants reflected on the links between climate stress, gender-based violence (GBV), and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and identifying multiple forms of violence and health challenges rooted in structural inequalities such as patriarchal norms, economic hardship, and limited access to services.
FGD also highlighted ongoing collective actions led by Puspita Bahari, including community organising, environmental initiatives, and advocacy efforts. The session created a space for shared learning, solidarity, and collective reflection on possible pathways forward. It concluded with a shared vision for a more just and sustainable future, grounded in gender equality, community-led solutions, and stronger institutional support.
Photographer: Kholil Wahyudi.
Fisherwomen’s Boat Parade: Commemorating the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
On 30 November 2025, Puspita Bahari organised a coastal forum and sea action titled “The Parade of 16 Fisherwomen’s Boats: Resisting Coastal Exploitation that Destroys Lives” as part of the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (25 November–10 December) and in commemoration of Human Rights Day.
Held in Tambak Polo Hamlet and the coastal waters of Morodemak, Central Java, the event brought together around 120 participants, including fisherwomen, civil society organisations, women’s groups, student organisations, and media partners. The parade symbolised resistance against coastal exploitation and highlighted the lived realities of communities facing the intersecting impacts of environmental degradation, climate crisis, and gender injustice. More than a symbolic action, it served as a powerful platform for visibility, advocacy, and collective resistance, amplifying the voices of coastal women in the fight for gender and climate justice.
The Parade of 16 Fisherwomen’s Boats was also designed as a space for advocacy and movement-building among coastal women. This initiative seeks to amplify public understanding of how extractive development and the climate crisis disproportionately affect fisherwomen, while positioning the women’s movement in Demak as part of broader struggles for women’s rights and human rights in Indonesia and beyond. The event combined sea protest, public speeches, and coastal discussions with cultural practices such as painting messages of hope on mini boat replicas, a brokohan tumpeng ceremony, and bancaan nasi branjangan. These traditions reflect gratitude, collective prayer, humility, and togetherness, while honouring the earth and the sea as vital sources of life, reinforcing the deep connections between culture, community, and environmental justice.
Photographers: Kholil Wahyudi, Demak Berdikari, and Department of Communication Universitas Islam Indonesia.
Gotong Royong for the Coast: Fisherwomen Initiating Food and Waste Solutions
In December 2025, a capacity-building session was held at the Sanggar Pramuka Hall in Demak, bringing together 35 participants, including fisherwomen, community members, and local stakeholders. The session aimed to strengthen local knowledge and collective capacity to address coastal waste challenges and build food resilience in the context of climate change. It featured resource persons from the Demak Environmental Agency and the activist group FOSIL, who shared insights on coastal sustainability, waste management, and food crop adaptation. Discussions covered the role of waste banks in addressing growing waste challenges, the importance of community participation, and the impacts of environmental changes such as seawater intrusion, high soil salinity, and waterlogging. The session also explored strategies for adapting food production and strengthening mangrove conservation to support sustainable coastal livelihoods.
Participants engaged in facilitated group discussions to map waste-related challenges and identify community-led solutions in their respective villages. Across Purworejo, Timbulsloko, and Morodemak, participants highlighted shared concerns, including unmanaged waste, limited infrastructure, flooding, and low public awareness, as well as challenges in developing household food crops. At the same time, strong community cohesion, mutual cooperation (gotong royong), and local knowledge emerged as key strengths. Participants proposed actions including establishing waste banks, improving waste separation practices, strengthening community organising, and engaging with government and other stakeholders for support. The session created a collaborative space for learning and planning, reinforcing the role of fisherwomen and coastal communities in leading environmental action and building resilience.
Photographer: Kholil Wahyudi.
In addition to the Focus Group Discussion (FGD), the learning process was strengthened through a study visit on 27 December 2025 to the Krajan Makmur Waste Bank and the Kodim (District Military Command) Demak Food Security Garden. Participants gained practical knowledge on waste management, waste bank systems, and small-scale food cultivation adapted to coastal conditions, while building connections for future collaboration. This was followed by training on 14-16 January 2026 in three coastal villages, where more than 100 plants and seedlings were distributed, and participants learned hands-on techniques for climate-resilient food cultivation, including the use of Local Microorganisms as natural fertiliser.
Through a mix of hands-on learning and earlier activities, fisherwomen began initiating collective actions in their villages. This process led to the establishment of four community waste banks and three climate-resilient food gardens, involving 75 fisherwomen. Supported by the Demak Environmental Agency, the Demak Green Forum, and the FOSIL Demak community, these initiatives strengthen food security, promote sustainable waste management, and reinforce the collective leadership of coastal women in responding to ongoing environmental and climate challenges.
Photographer: Kholil Wahyudi.
Coastal Women Caring for (Mother) Earth and Sea Festival
On 18 April 2026, more than 150 people gathered in the sunken village of Timbulsloko, Demak Regency, Indonesia, for the Festival “Perempuan Pesisir Merawat (Ibu) Bumi dan Laut” or “Coastal Women Caring for (Mother) Earth and Sea”. Organised by Puspita Bahari, a fisherwomen’s movement, the event combined fashion, cultural practice, dance and climate justice dialogue to highlight grassroots women’s leadership in addressing climate change, gender inequalities, and coastal environmental crises. The Festival was supported by Katie McQuaid and Andi Misbahul Pratiwi from the UKRI-funded GENERATE project at the University of Leeds.
The Festival was held in collaboration with more than 30 organisations and community groups, including Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (KIARA), Persaudaraan Perempuan Nelayan Indonesia (PPNI), Komunitas EMPU Sustainable Fashion (EMPU), Indonesian Legal Resource Center (ILRC), Jakarta Feminist, LBH Semarang, BARAPUAN, LBH APIK Semarang, U-INSPIRE, Walhi Jateng, Forum Demak Hijau (FDH), FOSIL Demak, Demak Berdikari, Demak Hari ini, Aliansi Demak Menggugat (ADEM ), Timbulsoko Bangkit, Suara Ibu Peduli, Mother Bank, Ruang Studi Gladak, Harapan Mandiri Disabilitas (HMD), Pasar Ngabei, Indonesia Brand Activits Network (IBAN), Omah Petruk, Zie Batik Semarang, Mlati Wangi, Lusi Tjan, Collabox Creative Hub, Departemen Ilmu Komunikasi Universitas Islam Indonesia, World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), and World March of Women (WMW) Indonesia.
Responding to polycrises
Founded in 2005, Puspita Bahari has long advocated for the rights of women in fishing communities across Demak’s coastal region. In the last decade, communities in the area have experienced worsening tidal flooding, land subsidence, sea-level rise, and the impacts of uneven coastal development.
Based on report data and accompaniment records from Puspita Bahari, there were 19 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) documented in Demak between 2023 and 2025. Economic neglect and psychological violence were the most common forms, often occurring together. Many survivors experienced multiple forms of violence, highlighting the layered nature of GBV in climate-affected coastal areas. At the same time, survivors face significant barriers in accessing safe houses and reporting cases, as tidal flooding disrupts mobility, limits access to services, and intensifies vulnerability.
“Women in coastal areas face many challenges. They are responsible for caring for children, grandchildren, and managing the household, which creates a double burden, especially when combined with environmental impacts. During tidal flooding, everyday domestic tasks become much more difficult, such as bathing, cooking, and washing clothes and dishes.”
“Women in coastal areas are also vulnerable to sexual violence and domestic abuse. When problems arise, especially economic difficulties, women are often the ones who bear the burden. In many cases, Puspita Bahari also supports the handling of these situations.”
Puspita Bahari has developed a range of community-based initiatives, including:
advocating for official recognition of women fishers and access to social protection
building cooperatives and developing and diversifying coastal food products
producing and distributing reusable cloth menstrual pads
mangrove nurseries to support coastal ecosystems and livelihoods
waste banks and food resilience gardens
supporting survivors of gender-based violence.
These integrated initiatives show that climate adaptation is not only about infrastructure or technical solutions, but also about justice, care, livelihoods, and dignity.
A festival of resistance, resilience, and dialogue
Held in Timbulsloko, a village heavily affected by tidal flooding, the Festival combined environmental action, cultural performance, and political dialogue. Just two decades ago, Timbulsloko was an agricultural village. Today, the remaining houses stand above water, connected by narrow bridges built by residents. Many homes have been raised repeatedly to keep pace with rising tides, making doorways appear lower and more compressed over time. This shifting landscape formed the backdrop of the Festival, where everyday survival is inseparable from climate change.
“Timbulsloko today is very different compared to 2020. At that time, the village was truly devastated, it felt like a ghost village, with no community activities. Access between residents was cut off, and even more so access out of the village. Collective activities such as religious gatherings and community events also stopped. At that time, together with Puspita Bahari, we reached out to a wider network, including LBH Semarang and KIARA, and worked collectively to rebuild roads and restore the village. We are still waiting for solutions from the government for our village.”
The Festival began with a community procession of coastal women, human rights activists, and members of a local youth movement. The procession featured an eco-fashion show led by Komunitas EMPU, with many participants modelling clothing coloured with natural dyes and designed and tailored by local women across Indonesia. This was followed by a symbolic earth-healing ritual, including a food-sovereignty harvest and the dispersal of eco-enzyme solutions into flooded waters as acts of restoration and hope.
Cultural performances followed, including a dance performance by The Cangik illustrating the lives of coastal women during tidal floods.
Puspita Bahari also presented a musical performance in collaboration with Mother Bank and Suara Ibu Peduli titled “Tidal Floods”. An excerpt from the song reads:
Banjir rob datang lagi
Angkatlah perbaotanmu
Walau lelah mengantuk
Kasur basah, barang terapung
The tidal flood comes again
Lift up all your things
Though weary and sleepy
Mattresses soaked, belongings afloat
The centrepiece of the Festival was a Climate Justice Forum, bringing together fisherwomen from Purworejo, Morodemak, Margolinduk, Bedono, and Timbulsloko with policymakers from local and national government institutions, including a member of the Regional Representative Council (DPD RI), the Deputy Chair of the Demak Regional House of Representatives (DPRD), the former Chair of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan, 2010-2014), representatives from the Demak Environmental Agency and the Office for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, as well as environmental activists and gender justice advocates. Participants called for a future coastal policy that does not ignore gender equality, women’s voices, or ecological sustainability.
“We welcome the initiative of fisherwomen who have established waste banks and mangrove nurseries. We have also been planning to purchase mangroves cultivated by community groups, which will then be planted along our shoreline to serve as buffers. In addition, we will buy plastic waste from the waste bank to be processed into materials for wave-breaking structures, which we have already begun producing to address coastal abrasion and sea waves.”
“For years, coastal women in Demak have faced layered impacts from extractive development and increasingly severe tidal flooding. This has led to poverty, domestic violence, reproductive health problems, and intensified domestic burdens. It reflects the state's failure to protect the rights of coastal women. We are tired of false solutions. We need real change that actually listens to women and supports us.”
“I was struck by the strong cross-generational participation. Puspita Bahari built intersectional solidarities, challenging binaries between urban/rural, coastal/non-coastal, women/men, and young/old. Tidal flooding is not isolated but tied to wider political, economic, and environmental systems shaping our futures. Sustaining these movements is crucial amid overlapping crises that affect both individuals and collective struggle.”
Building global solidarity through research action partnerships
The Festival reflects ongoing collaborations between grassroots communities in Indonesia and researchers at the University of Leeds on gender, climate change, and social justice. Over the past six months, these collaborations have established four women-led waste banks and three food resilience gardens, distributed 200 plant seedlings, and gathered data on and co-designed interventions to prevent gender-based violence in climate-affected coastal communities.
By facilitating community-led initiatives such as this Festival, the GENERATE Project demonstrates how universities can work alongside frontline communities to co-produce knowledge, arts, and creative feminist praxis to support transformative local climate action.
As coastal women in Demak made clear throughout the Festival, those most affected by climate change are not passive victims—they are already leading the struggle for a more just and sustainable future.
Photographer: Daffa/Demak Berdikari.
Tidal Floods: Women, Fisheries, and Climate Crisis In Indonesia
By 2100, over 410 million people worldwide could be at risk due to rising sea levels. Over the last decade alone, global sea levels have already increased by 10 cm. Among the nations most at risk is Indonesia, an archipelago with the world’s second-largest coastline, stretching over 99,000 km.
Indonesia’s coasts are vital to global food security, as the country is a leader in fisheries, with the highest number of marine and industrial fisheries in Southeast Asia. However, these critical marine resources are under severe threat from climate change.
Rising sea levels and harmful development practices endanger not only the environment but also the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities.
Women in coastal communities face multiple impacts of climate change, including reduced income, loss of space, health issues, water scarcity, threats to sexual and reproductive health, and rising gender-based violence. Amid these challenges, they also show daily resilience and resistance, highlighting the need for intersectional, gender-transformative adaptation policies.
This illustrated book “Tidal Floods: Women, Fisheries, and Climate Crisis in Indonesia” delves into the stories of Indonesia’s fisherwomen, exploring the intersections of gender, environmental change, activism, and the future of the country’s coastal regions.
An Illustrated Book Co-Created by Fisherwomen and Postgraduate Student in the School of Geography, University of Leeds.
This illustrated book, “Tidal Floods: Women, Fisheries, and the Climate Crisis in Indonesia,” is available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. Download here.
The creation of this book was funded by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation as part of the GENERATE Project (Gender, Generation, and Climate Change: Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia), University of Leeds. This book is developed based on research data conducted by Andi Misbahul Pratiwi (PhD Student, School of Geography, University of Leeds) in 2024. The research was conducted using the Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) method, involving 38 fisherwomen in coastal villages, Demak, Central Java, Indonesia.
Zine and Creative Celebration of the Fisherwomen’s Movement in Indonesia
This zine “Let’s Get to Know Puspita Bahari, The Fisherwomen Movement in Coastal Demak” is the result of a powerful collaboration between Puspita Bahari and the University of Leeds, uniting fisherwomen, researchers, and artists to amplify impactful stories of resilience, leadership, and community-driven change.
Puspita Bahari, a fisherwomen’s community in Demak Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia. They were founded in 2005 with the spirit of empowering fisherwomen and helping them improve their welfare and escape and break the chains of patriarchal culture. Puspita Bahari was born as an oasis amid the strong patriarchal culture in coastal communities and to challenge the continued dominance of masculinity within the fisherfolk movement in Indonesia.
Through this zine, we bring to life the voices and experiences of fisherwomen navigating the challenges of climate change while showcasing innovative, community-led, and transformative practices. This creative celebration is more than a publication—it is a feminist act of documenting women’s knowledge, power, and leadership for a local, national, global audience, inspiring change and igniting hope.
Together, we celebrate the strength of Indonesia’s fisherwomen and their vital role in shaping a sustainable and equitable future.
This Zine is available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. Download here:
The creation of this Zine was funded by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation as part of the GENERATE Project (Gender, Generation, and Climate Change: Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia), University of Leeds. This Zine is developed based on research data conducted by Andi Misbahul Pratiwi (PhD Student, School of Geography, University of Leeds) in 2024. The research was conducted using the Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) method, involving 38 fisherwomen in coastal villages, Demak, Central Java, Indonesia.