Indonesia urged to protect famed Raja Ampat as nickel miners move in
Indonesia’s dirty nickel industry has already exposed the hypocrisy underpinning the clean energy transition. But a push – involving an ASX-listed company – has sparked worldwide alarm.
It is one of the world’s most prized and pristine marine environments, a UNESCO-listed divers’ paradise in remote west Papua with the greatest marine biodiversity on the planet.
But Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago is now at the centre of a push – involving an ASX–listed company – to expand the country’s nickel mining and processing industry to meet an insatiable global demand for critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries and the broader clean energy transition.
Previously mothballed nickel mining concessions throughout Raja Ampat (Four Kings) have been ramped up, including one previously jointly owned until 2008 by BHP Billiton on Gag Island close to Piaynemo, a marine environment so prized it features on Indonesia’s Rp100,000 note.
New exploration is also occurring on other small, pristine islands across the archipelago of tiny islands and shoals, in direct contravention of the country’s own protection laws, while large areas of Raja Ampat’s main Waigeo Island along the north coast are also believed to have been carved into mining concessions.
The mining has sparked frantic warnings from tourist operators, environmental activists, divers and local government leaders that the activity will lay waste to one of the world’s natural wonders, as it has other sensitive regions of Indonesia.
Raja Ampat is home to 75 per cent of the world’s coral species and more than 2500 fish species, including huge manta rays, turtles and epaulette sharks that walk on the sea floor with their fins, while ancient limestone karsts form colossal sentinels above the turquoise water line.
A new Greenpeace investigation has revealed nickel mining is occurring on Gag, Kawe and Manuran islands – where local populations depend almost entirely on eco-tourism – while similarly tourism-dependent Batang Pele and Manyaifun islands are also earmarked for exploitation, less than 30km from Piaynemo.
Several Greenpeace campaigners and Papuan environmental activists were arrested last week in Jakarta for disrupting a government-hosted critical minerals conference to protest against the latest industry push.
A Greenpeace report to be released on Thursday estimates more than 500ha of tropical rainforest has already being cleared, and that soil run-off from poorly managed strip mines is seriously threatening the region’s delicate marine ecosystems.
Amid a nationwide outcry sparked by the revelations, the Indonesia government suspended production on Thursday at the Gag Island mine site operated by Aneka Tambang, a partly state-owned firm listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, before the environment ministry extended the pause to four islands where mining or exploration is occurring.
“We understand that Raja Ampat is a tourism spot that must be protected, but its area is vast,” Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said.
“All mining activities must adhere to environmental impact assessments.”
Nickel ore from Raja Ampat mines is currently being shipped on barges through the sensitive coral-rich area to Chinese-owned smelters in Weda Bay, North Maluku, where extensive environmental damage has already been recorded.
Mr Lahadalia admitted proposals to construct nickel smelters in West Papua were also under consideration, raising fresh alarm.
A spokesman for PT Gag Nikel – a subsidiary of Aneka Tambang that operates the Gag Island mine – has said the company will fully co-operate with any review.
A later statement from the environment ministry said action would be taken against all mining companies operating in the area, including China-backed Anugerah Surya Pratama, which holds the mining licence on Manuran Island, for legal violations and environmental damage.
The Manuran Mine came to prominence in 2011 when it was revealed Clive Palmer was sourcing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of nickel from there for his Queensland Yabulu refinery, despite a ban on the mine by local authorities in Raja Ampat.
While the government’s actions have granted a temporary reprieve, many fear it will be short-lived and local concerns will eventually be steamrollered, as they have been in other regions now decimated by the nickel industry.
“This is the first step in what we think will be a long campaign,” says Greenpeace Indonesia lead campaigner Kiki Taufik, who told The Australian it was clear from the group’s investigations that the intention was to open up an entirely new nickel mining zone.
“The Minister for Energy and Mining says he will evaluate permits in Raja Ampat but to be honest we don’t believe that.”
On Manyaifun Island, local tourist homestay entrepreneur Bobi Fakdawer said he too was worried plans for mines on his island and neighbouring Batang Pele would go ahead regardless.
“We own these homestays, we protect the forests and reefs around Manyaifun and Batang Pele. We’re prosperous because nature has provided for us,” he said. “Our parents protected nature for us and we want to protect it for future generations.”
Ronisel Mambrasar, a young West Papuan with the Raja Ampat Nature Guardians group who joined the Jakarta protest last week, said the mining issue was fracturing local communities and “sowing conflict where there was once harmony”.
Raja Ampat regent Orideko Burdam told local reporters that while 97 per cent of the West Papuan archipelago was now under conservation protection, the Indonesian government controlled all mining permits.
“When environmental damage occurs due to mining, we are powerless because we lack authority,” Mr Burdam said.
Indonesia has rapidly expanded its nickel sector in recent years to meet demand from the electric vehicle sector, with little regard for the devastating impacts on its own environment and local populations in Sulawesi and the famed Spice Islands.
Its Chinese-dominated industry now produces well over half of the world’s nickel output while nickel exports have become a major source of income for the Indonesian government, with annual earnings estimated to have almost quadrupled in the past four years to $US40bn.
Yet Indonesia’s dirty nickel industry has also exposed the rank hypocrisy underpinning the clean energy transition.
Sulawesi’s notorious Morowali nickel mining and processing industrial park has turned what was once a sleepy tropical fishing village into a bleak landscape of scarred mine pits, smelters, power plants and belching chimney stacks.
In North Maluku’s Weda Bay, which accounts for 17 per cent of global nickel production, more than 5000ha of tropical rainforest has been cleared, displacing indigenous communities and heavily polluting forests and waterways.
Many are hoping the industry’s push into Raja Ampat, however, will prove a step too far.
Some Indonesian MPs are backing Greenpeace’s demands that all mining permits in Raja Ampat be permanently revoked and all mining companies be forced to rehabilitate damaged areas.
“The central and regional governments must immediately stop new mining permits in Raja Ampat and conduct a thorough audit of the (permits) that have been issued,” said Novita Hardini, an Indonesian MP and member of the national parliamentary commission for the environment, which is pushing for greater protections for the prized eco-tourism region. “Downstreaming is fine, but don’t place it in a location that is the face of Indonesia in the eyes of the world.”
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