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Nickel boom? Not for the people of Raja Ampat
Host communities, often indigenous and marginalized, are left with nothing.
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Deforestation is shown on Dec. 21, 2024, in an area of Kawei island, Raja Ampat, Southwest Papua. (AFP/Handout)
U
sually, it begins in a plush café inside a five-star hotel in Jakarta. An official from a mineral-rich province meets with a broker, a lawmaker from the ruling coalition, and someone from the mining ministry. Over meals that cost more than many Indonesians earn in a month, paid for by taxpayer money, they begin the deal-making.
The topic? Land. Specifically, land they do not even own. This time, a nickel mine.
They talk about percentages, concession rights and fees. But rarely, if ever, do they talk about the people who actually live on that land: indigenous communities, farmers, fishermen. There is no mention of consent, or the destruction to come. Only calculations of who gets how much, and when.
If the price is right, the next meeting is arranged. This time with the real decision-makers: the corporate bosses. Some are Indonesian tycoons. Others represent foreign investors from China, the United States or Europe. And then, quietly, the wheels of extraction begin to turn.
What is tragic is not just the dispossession, but how cheaply it is sold. The personal fees pocketed by these brokers and officials are minuscule compared to the multi-billion dollar value of the mining contracts they approve. But for them, that does not matter. Once the fee is handed over the consequences are someone else’s problem.
Whether it is toll roads, railways like the massively over budget Whoosh transit project, forest clearances or nickel mining in Halmahera and now Raja Ampat, the playbook is always the same: pay big up front, and you own the outcome.
This is not development. It is extractive populism. It cloaks itself in the language of progress, jobs and national pride, but in reality, it is about converting natural wealth into private gain, fast, while telling the public they should be grateful.
