He taught mathematics in a small state school on Flores and organized the parish youth group on weekends. Numbers ordered his days; community gave them purpose. In recent years, he also helped mobilize opposition to plans to tap the island’s restless geology for power.
On Sept. 5, 2025, Vian Ruma was found dead, hanging from a rafter inside a bamboo hut off the road to Maunori, reports Hans Nicholas Jong. He was 30.
Little about those final hours is settled. His family says the cord at his neck was a shoelace and that his feet touched the floor, details they believe are inconsistent with death by hanging. Photos and reports from the scene described blood on the hut’s boards, his motorcycle parked outside, his phone nearby. Police in Nagekeo say they are investigating and have not determined a cause. Friends and colleagues, shocked, have asked for speed and transparency.
The dispute that drew him into public life is larger than one project. In 2017, the government designated Flores a “geothermal island,” citing nearly 1,000 megawatts of potential along its chain of active volcanoes. For many in Nagekeo, Ngada, and Manggarai, the promise of clean energy comes entangled with risk. A failed effort in Ngada produced mud eruptions that ruined farmland. Survey crews and drilling plans in Poco Leok deepened social rifts. Church leaders, including the Archdiocese of Ende, have taken a critical line. Vian, a local organizer with Catholic Youth and a member of a climate-focused youth coalition, became one of the villagers who asked for a different path.
He preferred steady work to slogans. Colleagues remembered a patient teacher who helped students prepare for exams, then rode his Honda home to Wio before church meetings. The week he died, he had taken leave to serve as master of ceremonies at a Catholic youth gathering.
“This week we had planned another action to continue voicing opposition to the geothermal project. Vian was one of the driving forces,” said his friend Eda Tukan. “Sadly, he is no longer with us.”
His death comes in a harsher season for Indonesian environmental defenders, with threats and criminal cases rising, and street protests met by force. Lawmakers have urged restraint.
“There must be no intimidation, violence, or criminalization of critical voices from communities regarding strategic projects,” said lawmaker Daniel Johan.
For those who knew him, the demand is simpler. Find out what happened, and let the facts, properly gathered and made public, do their work.
Death of activist critical of geothermal project raises alarm in Indonesia
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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