This research demonstrates that the ecological crisis in South Sulawesi cannot be understood solely as a consequence of intensified natural resource exploitation; rather, it is the result of a development policy configuration that prioritizes economic growth within a civic space that lacks genuine deliberative qualities. When public participation is reduced to a merely procedural administrative mechanism, the distribution of ecological benefits and risks becomes increasingly unequal. Communities that live in and depend directly on coastal, karst, and forest landscapes—such as fishers, farmers, women, and Indigenous peoples—bear the brunt of ecological impacts, yet their ability to influence policy direction is increasingly constrained. Consequently, ecological justice is overshadowed by the shrinking of civic space: while it remains a normative horizon for development, it is continually circumscribed by power relations and policy structures that undermine citizens’ capacity to substantively exercise their ecological citizenship.
