Ebed de Rosary, Ende, Indonesia – The governor of one Indonesia's poorest provinces said it would pause development of new geothermal energy projects on the island of Flores, following an intervention by the Catholic Church.

On April 4, East Nusa Tenggara Governor Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena said his administration would review all ongoing geothermal exploration on Flores Island, home to more than a third of the province's population of 5.6 million.

His statement came shortly after he met with Archbishop Paulus Budi Kleden, who leads the Achrdiocese of Ende, representing the Catholic dioceses from Bali to Flores.

From March 10-13, six bishops under the archdiocese issued a Lenten pastoral letter, a missive written ahead of the 40-day period leading up to Easter.

"We firmly reject the development of the Flores and Lembata geothermal projects," the letter said. "We believe that these projects will damage the existing natural ecosystem."

The letter was signed by Archbishop Paulus, in addition to five bishops in his archdiocese.

"These exploitative choices clash with the main direction of development which is to make this region a leading tourism, agriculture, plantation, livestock and marine area," the letter said.

Dead heat

Indonesia spans 17,000 islands that straddle the Indian and Pacific islands and form part of the Ring of Fire, where 90% of the world's earthquakes occur.

Consequently, Indonesia holds the world's largest potential for geothermal energy, which harnesses steam from the Earth's crust to power a turbine, generating energy with close to zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Exploring these geothermal sites involves capital-intensive drilling with no guarantee of financial return. Moreover, many potential sites are located within protected areas or alongside rural communities who often object to the land-use change.

The 1997-98 Asian financial crisis blocked growing momentum in the sector three decades ago, and slow policy support and the national grid's preference for cheaper, reliable coal generation curtailed progress until recently.

However, Indonesia has more than 2,000 megawatts of geothermal capacity today, after installation increased by almost 80% during the previous decade.

In 2017 Indonesia's energy ministry announced Flores would become a major geothermal location. A 2023 paper published in the Journal of Research in Science Education noted that East Nusa Tenggara province has the potential to reach more than 1,200 MW of capacity over 31 areas.

"Of this number, 30 points are on Flores Island and its small islands," noted Richardo Barry Astro at the University of Flores.

The energy ministry has cited electricity demand from 11 mining areas in Flores's Manggarai district, including manganese smelters, behind the decision to brand Flores a "Geothermal Island."

Demonstrators have sought to pressure the state electricity utility, PLN, to abandon the geothermal plans in Flores. At a 2023 protest, demonstrators held up placards stating "Flores is an island of flowers, not a geothermal island."

Objection to the development is widespread in Indigenous areas such as around the Poco Leok volcano in East Manggarai district. Mongabay Indonesia has previously reported on the local opposition, which has included clashes with police.

"The target area for the expansion of geothermal operations includes 13 hamlets in three villages, Lungar, Mocok and Golo Muntas," mining watchdog Jatam wrote in 2023. "In these three villages, there are around 3,000 residents, the majority of whom depend on the agricultural and plantation sectors."

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment, an NGO known as Walhi, has asserted that potential exists for groundwater pollution and dangerous gas leaks.

"There's no guarantee that geothermal waste will be managed properly," said Yuvensius Stefanus Nonga, deputy head of the Walhi chapter in East Nusa Tenggara.

However, Surya Darma, chair of the Indonesia Center for Renewable Energy Studies (ICRES), said geothermal was a proven safe technology founded on rigorous geological surveys and safety standards, as long as the potential environmental impacts were properly mapped beforehand.

"Before a project begins, an in-depth geological and environmental risk assessment needs to be conducted to identify and mitigate negative impacts," Surya said.

See change

The Vatican sought to take a leadership role in the global fight against climate change under the late Pope Francis, who died on Apr. 21 at the age of 88. Francis set out his focus on the environment with publication of the Laudato Si' encyclical letter in 2015.

"Change is something desirable, yet it becomes a source of anxiety when it causes harm to the world and to the quality of life of much of humanity," the Laudato Si' stated in 2015.

Publication of an encyclical letter by the papacy is a major event in the development of practical Catholic teaching for the world's 1.4 billion faithful.

On her appointment in 2016 as environment secretary in the Philippines, the late Gina Lopez cited the Laudato Si' ahead of a ban on open-pit mining in the nation with the world's third-largest Catholic population. In 2019, thousands of Catholic churches in the U.K. agreed to one of the largest-ever renewable energy contracts.

In the decade since Pope Francis's Laudato Si' on the environment, the Holy See has published five further encyclicals. An apostolic exhortation titled Laudato Deum followed up on the Laudato Si' in 2023 to call for greater binding international action on climate change ahead of the 2023 U.N. climate conference in Dubai.

"The Pope's encyclical, along with mobilization by many other faith groups across the globe, provided a clear moral imperative for taking climate action, supporting the Paris Climate Change Agreement and backing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Involvement by Indonesian faith groups in environmental policy has received additional scrutiny since last year, when then-president Joko Widodo amended Indonesia's mining rules to allow religious organizations to operate coal mines.

Indonesia's Catholic Church in Indonesia has said it will not manage coal mines, regardless of the government changing rules to allow it to do so.

A 2018 documentary, Semesta, highlighted religious leaders marshaling their communities across Indonesia against combating change, including a priest in Flores, Marselus Hasan, as one of its central figures.

The Indonesian government has repeatedly fallen short of its renewable energy goals. However, Flores became the first island in the country to surpass the national target of 23% renewable electricity, a benchmark set in 2014.

Source: https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/church-pressure-spurs-scrutiny-of-indonesian-geothermal-projects