Indonesian woman plants mangroves to fight rising tides

Pasijah, 55, wakes up every morning to the sound of the sea. Sounds idyllic — but in reality, it's anything but. Her house is the only one left in this part of Rejosari Senik, a small village on the north coast of Java. It was once on dry land, but today it's flooded by seawater.

The water washes around the walls of Pasijah's house, where she has lived for 35 years. Her feet get wet when she steps outside. "I do have every intention to stay here and my feelings for this house remain," she told the Reuters news agency in February.

In recent years, Pasijah's neighbors have abandoned their homes, vegetable and rice fields to the advancing sea. But Pasijah and her family have no intention of leaving. The house is surrounded by floating bamboo and a broken electricity pylon; inside, the floor has been raised to keep it above the waves.

The nearest land is 2 kilometers (about 1.2 miles) away, the town of Demak another 19 kilometers. The only way to get there is by boat. Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, has around 81,000 kilometers of coastline and is therefore particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and erosion.

The sea level in Indonesia has risen an average of 4.25 millimeters per year since 1992, and has accelerated in recent years. According to the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, small islands are already disappearing. The problem is exacerbated by the pumping of groundwater, particularly along the north coast of Java and in Jakarta.

While authorities are responding to the problem with gigantic construction projects such as a 700-kilometer-long seawall along the north coast from Banten to East Java, Pasijah and her family are relying on the power of nature. "I realized 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 said.

Mangroves are true climate heroes. They help in the fight against climate change by storing large amounts of carbon dioxide, protecting coasts from storm surges and erosion, stabilizing the soil and securing habitats for animals and humans.

Over the past two decades, Pasijah has planted around 15,000 mangrove trees every year. Each day, she paddles out in a boat made from a blue plastic barrel to tend to the bushes and plant new seedlings in the blue-gray water.

Pasijah and her family survive by selling fish caught by her sons at the nearby market. They say they will stay as long as they can hold back the tide. "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," she said.