Indonesian Climate Justice Review
Indonesian Climate Justice Review (e-ISSN: 3164-2284) is published by COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA, first published in 2024, and issued quarterly in January, April, July, and October in online format (electronic journal). It is a peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship on climate justice, with a particular focus on Indonesia and the Global South. The journal provides an academic platform for scholars, researchers, legal practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders to examine the intersections of climate change, environmental law, human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, socio-economic inequality, and sustainable development from a justice-oriented perspective. The journal publishes original research articles, review articles, conceptual studies, policy analyses, case studies, and other scholarly works addressing climate governance, environmental policies, legal frameworks, climate adaptation and mitigation, environmental justice, indigenous and local community rights, sustainable development, and the protection of vulnerable and marginalized communities. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from environmental law, human rights, political ecology, development studies, climate science, international law, economics, sociology, indigenous studies, and related fields. Particular emphasis is placed on community engagement, participatory justice, equitable climate action, inclusive legal frameworks, community-based resilience, and evidence-based policy reform. The journal applies a double-anonymous peer-review process and an Open Access Policy, providing free and immediate access to all published articles. Copyright is retained by the authors, and all articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
Articles
55 Documents
<![CDATA[Eighteen Years Under the Shadow of Mining: Environmental Justice and Citizens’ Rights in Rantau Bakula, South Kalimantan ]]>
<![CDATA[Tengku Arsyad Firmansyah]]>;
<![CDATA[Nurul Putri Azzahra]]>;
<![CDATA[Siti Kurniasih]]>
<![CDATA[ Indonesian Climate Justice Review Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA ]]>
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DOI: 10.65815/fhmyf482
<![CDATA[Long-term conflicts between local communities and extractive industries reveal that environmental injustice is not only a consequence of isolated incidents but can become a prolonged condition of everyday life. This article examines the eighteen-year experience of residents in Rantau Bakula, South Kalimantan, in relation to coal mining and its social and environmental consequences. The study focuses on residents’ claims concerning environmental degradation, disruption of livelihoods, access to a healthy environment, and the limited effectiveness of available mechanisms for obtaining justice. By examining the community’s efforts to bring its grievances to state institutions, including legislative and human rights bodies, the article explores the relationship between environmental harm and institutional accountability. The Rantau Bakula case demonstrates how prolonged exposure to environmental risks can produce cumulative forms of vulnerability while simultaneously creating fatigue, uncertainty, and unequal access to legal and political remedies. The article employs an environmental-justice framework to examine distributive, procedural, and recognition dimensions of the conflict. It argues that environmental justice cannot be reduced to compensation after damage occurs. It also requires meaningful participation, effective grievance mechanisms, institutional accountability, and recognition of citizens’ rights to a safe and healthy environment. The case illustrates the structural challenges faced by communities confronting powerful extractive interests over extended periods.]]>
<![CDATA[When Rivers Become Mining Victims: Mercury, Illegal Gold Mining, and Ecological Injustice in West Sumatra ]]>
<![CDATA[Muhammad Fikri Ardiansyah]]>
<![CDATA[ Indonesian Climate Justice Review Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA ]]>
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DOI: 10.65815/gtvqp972
<![CDATA[Rivers are essential sources of water, food, livelihoods, and ecological stability, yet they increasingly function as sites where the environmental costs of extractive activities become concentrated. This article examines the relationship between illegal gold mining, mercury contamination, river degradation, and ecological injustice in West Sumatra. Focusing on artisanal and illegal mining practices, the study explores how the use and release of hazardous substances can affect aquatic ecosystems, agricultural activities, fisheries, and community health. Beyond environmental contamination, the article investigates the social and political dimensions of mining conflicts, including intimidation, violence, unequal enforcement, and weaknesses in environmental governance. The persistence of illegal mining despite its ecological consequences suggests that environmental degradation cannot be understood solely as a technological or behavioral problem. It is also embedded in economic dependence, regulatory failures, unequal power relations, and limited livelihood alternatives. Using an environmental-justice perspective, the article examines who benefits from gold extraction, who bears the risks of contamination, and whose voices are recognized in decisions concerning river governance. It argues that effective responses require more than enforcement against illegal mining. They must also address the structural conditions that sustain extractive practices while ensuring remediation, community participation, health protection, and accountability. River protection, therefore, should be understood as both an ecological and social justice issue.]]>
<![CDATA[From Forests to Concessions: Why Does Indigenous Peoples’ Protection Lag Behind in Indonesian Forest Governance? ]]>
<![CDATA[Fikran Ali Hidayat]]>
<![CDATA[ Indonesian Climate Justice Review Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA ]]>
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DOI: 10.65815/bq532c82
<![CDATA[Indonesia’s forests are simultaneously ecological systems, economic resources, and living territories for Indigenous and local communities. Despite growing recognition of Indigenous rights, conflicts over land and forest governance continue as industrial concessions expand across areas historically managed by communities. This article examines why the protection of Indigenous peoples remains structurally limited within Indonesia’s forest governance system. It focuses on tenure insecurity, the recognition of customary forests, criminalization, industrial concessions, and competing claims over community-managed territories. The article argues that the central problem lies not simply in insufficient legal recognition but in the institutional and political arrangements through which forests are classified, allocated, and governed. State-centered licensing systems can privilege commercial uses of forests while treating customary territorial claims as secondary or conditional. As a result, communities may face legal uncertainty, restricted access to resources, or criminalization when defending territories they have historically managed. Through a political-ecology and environmental-justice framework, the study examines the unequal distribution of authority over forests and the consequences of concession-based governance. It argues that meaningful forest protection requires strengthening tenure security, accelerating recognition of customary territories, ensuring free and meaningful participation, and reforming licensing systems. Protecting forests and protecting Indigenous rights should not be treated as competing objectives but as interconnected dimensions of ecologically sustainable and socially just forest governance.]]>
<![CDATA[Floods, Red Mud, and Nickel: Reading Kawasi as a Case of Climate Justice on a Small Island ]]>
<![CDATA[Ahmad Rizki Jauhari]]>
<![CDATA[ Indonesian Climate Justice Review Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA ]]>
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DOI: 10.65815/71qvwh71
<![CDATA[Small islands are often portrayed as highly vulnerable to climate change because of their limited land area, ecological sensitivity, and dependence on coastal resources. Yet vulnerability is not produced by climate change alone. It can be intensified by extractive industries and rapid landscape transformation. This article examines Kawasi on Obi Island as a case of climate and environmental injustice associated with nickel development. It focuses on recurring floods, red sediment deposition, altered landscapes, and the increasing exposure of local communities to environmental risks. Particular attention is given to how mining-related transformation may interact with the existing ecological vulnerability of small-island environments. The article also considers the differentiated impacts experienced by women, children, and households whose livelihoods depend directly on local ecosystems. Through a climate-justice framework, Kawasi is analyzed not simply as a community exposed to environmental hazards but as a community situated within unequal economic and political relations. The central question is who gains from nickel-based industrialization and who bears the resulting ecological risks. The article argues that climate justice must extend beyond reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to include the protection of vulnerable communities from environmentally harmful forms of low-carbon development. A just transition in small-island contexts therefore requires ecological safeguards, community participation, livelihood protection, and recognition of local rights before industrial expansion proceeds.]]>
<![CDATA[The Bantargebang Landslide and the Invisible Crisis: Who Bears the Cost of the Urban Waste System? ]]>
<![CDATA[Neneng Euis Mulyani]]>
<![CDATA[ Indonesian Climate Justice Review Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[COLLEGIUM JUSTICIA INDONESIA ]]>
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DOI: 10.65815/n8tq6y02
<![CDATA[Urban waste management is often presented as a technical challenge involving collection, transportation, treatment, and disposal. Yet the environmental risks generated by urban waste systems are distributed unevenly across social and geographic spaces. This article examines the Bantargebang landfill as a case through which to understand the hidden social and ecological costs of metropolitan waste management. Recurrent landslides and other hazards associated with landfill operations reveal the vulnerability of waste pickers and residents living around disposal sites, while the consumption patterns generating enormous volumes of waste are largely concentrated elsewhere. The article explores this spatial separation between waste production and waste exposure and asks who ultimately bears the risks associated with urban consumption. Particular attention is given to waste pickers, surrounding communities, environmental health, and the unequal distribution of infrastructure and environmental protection. Using environmental-justice and urban political-ecology perspectives, the study argues that landfill communities effectively subsidize the consumption patterns of larger metropolitan populations through their exposure to pollution, instability, and health risks. The Bantargebang case therefore challenges the idea that waste disposal is merely an endpoint in an otherwise neutral urban system. A just waste system requires reduction at source, producer responsibility, safer working conditions, stronger community protection, and a redistribution of environmental burdens across the entire urban economy.]]>
