As Indonesia advances large-scale infrastructure along the North Java coast including the proposed Giant Sea Wall, hybrid Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are framed as technical fixes for Anthropocene pressures such as shoreline retreat and tidal flooding. Yet beneath the compliance-driven Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) mandated by international financiers, the ecocultural practices of coastal communities remain systematically undervalued within safeguard institutionalization.

Drawing on qualitative studies grounded in professional experience in Cirebon and Semarang, this paper examines how ESIA processes institutionalize particular knowledge regimes while marginalizing knowledge embedded in everyday coastal life. Where mangroves flourish, fishing households cultivate crab ecosystems within mangrove corridors; women's collectives lead replanting initiatives that blend livelihood strategy with ecological stewardship. These practices constitute relational, place-based knowledge systems which are not merely "local input" to be archived under stakeholder participation records.

Situating ESIA within a political ecology lens of NbS, this paper interrogates three tensions: who produces knowledge in ESIA processes, who owns it once institutionalized, and how it is valued within standardized international safeguard frameworks. State-led projects, funded through multilateral institutions, translates grassroots adaptations to standardized technocratic metrics, reproducing epistemic peripherality within ostensibly participatory safeguard efforts.

This paper argues that advancing pluriversal justice in development practice demands more than procedural inclusion. It calls for relational knowledge production frameworks that recognize ecocultural practices as legitimate epistemologies, accountability mechanisms tracing how community knowledge travels through the ESIA process, and capacity investments bridging institutional and grassroots expertise. North Java's coasts offer a grounded site for reimagining environmental governance beyond compliance.