Murdani heads a chapter of Indonesia’s largest environmental NGO, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi). On 1st of February 2019, he and his wife woke to the smell of burning on the second floor of their home in Menemeng village on Lombok, an island next to Bali. Over the past few months, Murdani had noticed people watching his house. After dawn broke and the police arrived, they found a pillow under the front wheel of Murdani’s car, apparently used to set it alight. They also found a plastic bag that smelled of gasoline by the house. Whoever started the fire had covered the security camera above the front door with a hat. They used a wooden chair to jam the door shut and a bamboo table to block another door. “The goal was to trap us inside,” Murdani said. Precisely why Murdani was targeted is not yet clear. The list of contentious development projects he has spoken out against in West Nusa Tenggara province, where he heads Walhi’s operations, is long — from the reclamation of Bima Bay on the neighboring island of Sumbawa to gold mining on Lombok. However, Murdani suspects it was his work on sand mining that prompted the attack. Sand mines abound in the part of Lombok where Murdani lives. Under his leadership, Walhi’s chapter in the province has fought illegal sand mines and urged the government not to issue permits for new sand mines. Residents have complained the sand mining has resulted in damaged roads, landslides and cloudy water.