Rukka Sombolinggi

First female Secretary General of AMAN advocating for indigenous rights in Indonesia

Rukka Sombolinggi (b.1979), a Torajan woman from Sulawesi, transformed Indonesia's indigenous rights movement through AMAN (Alliance of Indigenous Peoples). Leading 2,332 indigenous communities across 21 million hectares, she pioneered legal strategies recognizing customary forests as constitutional rights.

Under her leadership (2017-present), AMAN won 62,000 km² of forest recognition through maporangu - traditional boundary mapping combining GIS with ancestral knowledge. This legal-geospatial innovation blocked 147 industrial plantations, protecting biodiversity equivalent to 7,500 football fields daily.

Her Ecological Civilization Index, adopted by 14 Indonesian provinces, measures development through indigenous well-being metrics rather than GDP. As UNPFII speaker, Sombolinggi exposed how 98% of Indonesia's palm oil conflicts involve indigenous lands. TIME's 2022 Next Generation Leaders featured her as Southeast Asia's answer to Greta Thunberg with community-rooted solutions.