CENTRAL JAVA: Rasjoyo could only watch in silence as his small wooden boat sailed through Semonet, a sleepy fishing village in the northern coast of Java he once called home.
The coast has receded about 1.5km inland in the last two decades, submerging 54 houses and hundreds of hectares of fish farms and rice fields. All of the land access to the now deserted village has also been cut off by brackish seawater.
“We used to have everything here in Semonet,” the 38-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told CNA.
“We would catch crabs in the morning, tend to our fish ponds around noon and in the afternoon, pick flowers and fruits from our farms. You can say people here were quite prosperous.”
Then in the mid 2000s, the sea began encroaching the village.
Rice fields and farmlands were the first to be impacted as fresh water became more saline. Then the waves began pounding the row of houses, eroding the soft, sandy soil beneath them until these dwellings became one with the sea.
