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View all search resultsThe long, suspenseful journey to Indonesia's nickel 'paradise'
The Jakarta Post's recent trip to Raja Ampat late last month revealed the complex currents rippling and colliding beneath the mining versus tourism issue, conflated by environmental and indigenous concerns surrounding the global marine haven in the country's far-flung, easternmost region.
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Skipper Marsel Talla stands near the twin outboard motors at the stern of his boat on June 19, 2025, as tour guide Marthen Bertabuy, a native of Raja Ampat regency, keeps an eye out to help navigate the journey to Gag Island in Southwest Papua. (The Jakarta Post/Nikka Amandra Gunadharma)
This is the last part of three stories.
The recent brouhaha over nickel mining operations in Southwest Papua’s Raja Ampat regency, a UNESCO Global Geopark known as the “world’s last paradise”, exposed the stark contrast between tourism and mining, and that the two industries should not exist in such close proximity.
The stories gathered by The Jakarta Post from a trip to Raja Ampat in late June, only two weeks after the controversy broke out, paint a complex picture of parties with multiple interests who were convinced that mining and tourism could coexist, insisting that the tensions had arose over ways to make this possible.
The tension is very much palpable on Gag Island, home to the mining operation run by PT Gag Nikel, the only company that was allowed to continue with its activities despite their closeness to the popular marine tourism haven.
Getting to Gag Island was not easy, as it is only accessible by sea but beyond the reach of scheduled passenger boats, making chartering or “piggybacking” the only options available for visitors.
Gag Island is located far to the west of Waisai, Raja Ampat’s main transit town on Waigeo Island, making the trip unnecessarily long and expensive. It takes around five hours to make a one-way trip on a small boat equipped with twin 1-liter, 50-horsepower Yamaha outboard motors.
