"Cheap coal, cheap workers, Chinese money: Indonesia’s nickel success comes at a price", 11 April 2024

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Indonesia’s recipe for success is cheap coal, cheap ore, cheap workers and Chinese money. But this has meant a steep price to pay for locals, the environment and labourers.

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Water samples from a range of locations along the coast confirm high levels of heavy metals stemming from the mines and refineries.

In a river near Kurisa, popular for fishing, the concentration of nickel was more than 15 times higher than the World Health Organization’s guideline value. ...

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Many inhabitants in the region have been bought out from their land. Others tell stories of being forced away. The inhabitants of Kurisa live in stilt houses over the water and don’t hold any land titles. Lacking other opportunities, those young and healthy enough have taken up jobs in the factories. Juhardi describes the work as tough, with scant security precautions.

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On Christmas Eve last year, catastrophe struck. An explosion at a smelter took 21 lives.

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A spokesperson for PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel, a subsidiary of PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park in Morowali, told the ABC at the time of the explosion it would cooperate with the investigation.

“We sincerely apologise for this incident and we are working closely with authorities to investigate what caused the accident,” he said.

Another shift is already on the way, with western auto companies such as Volkswagen and Ford investing directly in Indonesian refineries to secure their nickel supply.

This could propel changes. Aimee Boulanger, the executive director at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, an organisation that has set a global standard for best practice in mining, says the government of Indonesia, as well as several of the mining outfits in the country, have started discussions with them.

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