After the peace process, the mountains are burning

This paper explores the intersection of climate justice and transitional justice through the case study of community-level climate initiatives in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Philippines. It identifies community-led climate actions that fuse transitional justice elements of truth-telling, reparative agency, and guarantees of non-recurrence in ways that challenge institutional silos between post-conflict and environmental governance. The findings demonstrate that addressing climate disasters in the BARMM is inseparable from resolving the historical land-based injustices and colonial displacement that created communal vulnerability. The study concludes that institutional frameworks must recognise and support community-led climate justice rather than displacing local agency with top-down technical solutions, and identifies the Bangsamoro Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Act of 2025 as a critical institutional opening for this integration.

Authors

Samuel Sontag, Reemar Alonsagay