Jull Takaliuang grew up knowing the sea by its smell—salt carried in the dark air before sunrise, when Sangihe was still half asleep.

On this small volcanic island at the northern edge of Sulawesi, life did not rush. It moved with the rhythms of nature. Jull’s family fished close to shore and read the weather in the wind. Cloves and nutmeg were picked by hand, one branch at a time. Sago trees were tapped and shared across generations, as if the forest itself remembered the people who cared for it.

No one called it “sustainability” then. It was simply life.

“We never thought of ourselves as lacking,” Jull recalls. “The sea and land provided what we needed. That was wellbeing.”

This conviction shaped her perspective on development long before she became an environmental activist. For Jull, progress could not be separated from care for the ecosystems that sustain human life. Since the 1998, she has accompanied communities across Sulawesi affected by extractive industries, working alongside civil society organizations to support people navigating environmental and social change.

Over the years of her activism, Jull saw how environmental degradation were not always loud at first. They came slowly: rivers that ran differently, soil that grew tired, children who coughed more often, fish that became harder to find. By the time anyone could clearly see the damage, communities had already been living with its consequences.

In 2021, residents of Bowone village in Sangihe reached out to Jull with concern over a proposed gold mining operation. The island was small, geologically fragile, and deeply dependent on clean water and coastal ecosystems. For the community, the issue was not only about permits or policy. It was about whether the island could remain liveable. 

Jull recognized the moment immediately. Not because she had seen this exact case before, but because she had seen the pattern.

Together with local civil society groups, she helped form the Save Sangihe Island initiative—a community-based movement that sought to engage legal processes, scientific knowledge, and community voices to protect the island’s future. It was a response rooted not in opposition, but in stewardship.

Women at the Frontline of Environmental Care

As the movement grew, women became central to its momentum. Many were mothers, fishers, and farmers whose daily work depended directly on natural resources. They were often the first to notice changes in water quality, soil condition, and fish availability. 56 women eventually joined a legal challenge against the mining permit, many of whom had never entered a courtroom before. Their participation came through formal channels and required sustained engagement with technical and legal processes.

“These women were not rejecting development,” Jull explains. “They were asking for development that would not put their families at risk.”

In many communities, women are closely connected to natural resources through everyday roles—managing household water, preparing food, caring for children, and sustaining small‑scale livelihoods. This proximity often makes women among the first to notice environmental change, and among the first to feel its consequences. When women act to protect land, water, and forests, they are also defending fundamental human rights: the right to health, food, clean water, and a safe living environment. 

This is the essence of a Woman Environmental Human Rights Defender (WEHRD). WEHRDs protect ecosystems while advocating for the wellbeing and dignity of communities that depend on them. Their leadership sits at the intersection of environmental sustainability, gender equality, and human development. However, speaking up is not without consequence for many of them, ranging from social pressure to threats that make even attending a meeting feel uncertain. Therefore, the ability of women to advocate for environmental protection does not depend solely on commitment or knowledge, but on whether the civic space around them is safe enough to allow their voices to endure. When that space narrows, even the strongest efforts can be cut short—not because the cause lacks legitimacy, but because the conditions to sustain advocacy are missing.

Recognizing both the importance and the challenges of this role, UNDP Indonesia’s work with WEHRDs responds to realities that figures like Jull navigate every day: advocating in contexts where access to decision making is uneven, information is limited, and personal risk is often part of speaking up. In this reality, the question is not simply who is willing to speak, but who is able to do so safely. Safety matters because it determines whether advocacy can be sustained: whether women can keep showing up to meetings, keep engaging in dialogue, keep protecting the places they call home without fear or exhaustion cutting their efforts short.

Rather than placing women defenders out front on their own, the WEHRD approach speaks to the importance of standing with them—reducing isolation, strengthening connections, and opening spaces where voices can be shared and carried together. When women are supported and protected, their knowledge of land, water, and community life is no longer fragile or easily silenced. It becomes part of a broader, collective effort to shape a greener and more just future—one where defending the environment does not require risking everything to be heard.

In Sangihe, these collective efforts led to a legal milestone: the revocation of the mining permit. For the community, it was an important moment. Not dramatic, but significant in what it prevented. When the permit was revoked, it was a relief. For many, it meant the island they depended on could breathe a little longer.

Still, it did not settle everything. New pressures and uncertainties followed, reflecting a broader reality: environmental protection is not resolved through a single decision. It continues through monitoring, governance, and sustained participation.

Throughout this process, Jull’s role was not only that of an advocate, but also a bridge between community knowledge and formal processes, between women’s everyday realities and national development conversations.

Sustaining Hope, Strengthening the Future

Years of accompanying communities have taken an emotional toll. Jull acknowledges moments of exhaustion and uncertainty, particularly when environmental challenges persist despite hard-won progress. Yet she continues, guided by a belief that protecting the environment is inseparable from protecting people.

“When we care for the land,” she says, “we are caring for life itself—today and for the generations after us.”

Alongside advocacy and legal work, Jull now supports efforts to reconnect younger generations with local practices. Seasonal rituals, shared harvesting, and community gatherings are being reintroduced not as preservation of the past, but as ways of maintaining continuity in how people relate to the environment. These practices help sustain something less measurable: familiarity, responsibility, and collective awareness.

Her story reflects the broader vision behind UNDP’s work on Women Environmental Human Rights Defenders: that inclusive, environmental governance strengthens trust, resilience, and sustainable development outcomes. Communities are most prepared to face environmental challenges when their leaders—women and men alike—are recognized, supported, and meaningfully included.

For Jull, the work continues not out of confrontation, but out of care. In places like Sangihe, those small lights are often carried by women - quietly, persistently, and sometimes at great personal cost. Supporting them is not only about protecting one island. It is about ensuring that those who defend our shared future are not left to stand alone.

“Even a small light matters,” she says. “As long as it reminds us of where we come from, and guides where we are going.(*)