By 2025, the women-only mangrove forest in Youtefa Bay, Jayapura—central to the Tonotwiyat tradition of the Tobati and Enggros Indigenous communities—has suffered a dramatic reduction in size and health. Once covering about 514 hectares in the 1960s, the forest lost nearly 38 hectares between 2014 and 2024 alone, leaving roughly 173.5 hectares intact. Rapid urban development, new road links, and the construction of a 700-metre bridge have further fragmented the landscape, tightening pressure on one of Papua’s most culturally significant ecosystems.
At the same time, pollution entering the bay has surged. A 2025 water-quality assessment revealed elevated levels of BOD₅, total suspended solids, ammonia, and nitrates—far beyond safe limits—suggesting escalating contamination that directly harms mangrove habitats and the shellfish populations women depend on. Increasingly, women return from harvesting trips with more plastic waste than soft-shell clams, highlighting not only ecological collapse but the erosion of a generations-old cultural space that sustains livelihoods, identity, and community resilience. More