Sinking villages look to nature to help Indonesia restore mangroves

Flooding in Timbulsloko is largely due to the clearing of mangroves over many decades to make way for aquaculture ponds. - Reuters

SEMARANG, Indonesia, Sept 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation): In a coastal community on Indonesia's Java island, villagers must constantly take soil and stones to local graveyards to secure the resting places of their dead friends and relatives - fearful that frequent flooding will sweep away the deceased.

Like other flood-prone villages in the northern Demak regency, Timbulsloko's problems are threefold - with over-extraction of groundwater causing sinking, aquaculture contributing to some of the worst coastal erosion across the archipelago, and sea levels rising due to climate change.