The workers went on strike from January 11 to 14 after GNI rejected their demands. On the last day, more than 500 security personnel were dispatched to the industrial park. Workers who were present during the strike said security forces fired pellet guns into the crowd. “They were firing projectiles everywhere. It was chaos,” said a GNI worker.
According to official reports, two workers were killed, a Chinese and an Indonesian, and 71 people were arrested. A 100-room dormitory was burned, and vehicles and machinery were destroyed.
Huayue Nickel Cobalt, Gunbuster Nickel, Indonesia’s Morowali Industrial Park, Tesla and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But GNI managing director Teh Cha Les said in a statement on the company’s website on February 15 that “something remains to be desired” when it comes to job safety. “We strongly demand direction and guidance to improve a better, healthier, safer and more comfortable working environment for all employees,” he added.
Labor concerns at IMIP coexist with serious concerns in Indonesia about the environmental impact of the nickel industry. Indonesia’s nickel industry is “particularly carbon-intensive and environmentally damaging” due to its reliance on coal, according to a September report by the Brookings Institute.
According to an analysis conducted by WIRED on behalf of Greenpeace Indonesia, more than 8,700 hectares of rainforest in North Morowali Regency, where IMIP is located, have been destroyed since 2000, along with the infrastructure needed to support them.
Erosion of the landscape makes it prone to natural disasters. In June, flash floods hit more than 500 homes in the area. Land clearing makes this happen every year, leading to drownings and the destruction of homes, bridges and government buildings. “Due to the massive land clearing that has taken place, flooding is now inevitable,” environmental activist Kasmudin said.
In Kurisa, a village on the southeastern edge of IMIP, the indigenous Bugis Wajo people told WIRED that pollution has destroyed their livelihoods. “There are no more fish here,” said Jus Manondo, a 45-year-old fisherman, as he sat on the wooden planks of his stilt house. “Waste from IMIP kills them.”
According to Manondo, in June 2021, a large pile of coal fell into the hot water treatment station of the IMIP steam power plant and flowed directly into the sea, which turned black. Dumping waste is also common. Wired observed that the polluted water flowed directly into the sea a few hundred meters from Manondo.
Manondo’s catch is now less than 20 percent of what it was a decade ago. Fishermen in the village are now forced to fish further afield, but with high fuel costs, it’s a situation of diminishing returns. “Sometimes we only catch enough fish to feed ourselves,” Manondo said. “Soon, we won’t even have that.”
Yet the industry is expanding in Indonesia, despite evidence that the nickel rush, fueled by demand for electric vehicles, has stretched the boundaries of social and environmental sustainability.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has set a goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030, more than 13 times his expected 2022 sales. The company’s rivals are also scaling up production of electric vehicles. Virta, an automotive research consultancy, predicts that the number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads will increase from 16 million in 2021 to 140 million by 2030.
Demand for high-grade nickel will outstrip supply by 2024, according to analysis by research firm Rystad Energy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which produces 11% of the world’s nickel, further tightened the market and pushed prices on the London Metal Exchange to 35-year highs.
To take advantage of the coming crunch, IMIP’s owners are doubling the size of the site and are building a second park, Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) on the neighboring Maluku Islands, which will eventually cover 5,000 acres. hectare.
“No matter how much profit it brings, it’s not enough,” says WALHI’s Hakim. “We cannot save the planet by destroying it.”
This story was reported with support from the Pulitzer Center.
