Last year, Indonesia’s biggest cement conglomerate won a final government permit to build a new 900-hectare production plant in a Central Java area south of the town of Rembang, where five villages now sit. But as word spread of the project, by Semen Indonesia – formerly Semen Gresik – area residents rebelled. Tensions came to a head in June when throngs mostly of women, fearing the plant would ruin their water supplies, rushed to block access to the factory site where company officials were gathering for a stone-laying ceremony.