How a race for electric vehicles threatens a marine paradise

Stark photos, captured from a drone by environmental campaigners and shared with the BBC, seem to indicate how nickel mining has stripped forests and polluted waters in probably the most biodiverse marine habitats on Earth.

The Raja Ampat archipelago – a gaggle of small islands in Indonesia’s Southwest Papua Province – has been dubbed the “Amazon of the Seas”.

However mining for nickel – an ingredient in electrical automobile batteries and in chrome steel – has ramped up there lately, in response to the organisation Global Witness.

In a transfer that was welcomed by campaigners, the Indonesian authorities this week revoked permits for 4 out of 5 mining corporations working within the area.

In a statement published online, Indonesia’s Ministry for the Surroundings stated: “Raja Ampat’s biodiversity is a world heritage that have to be protected.

“We pay nice consideration to mining actions that happen within the space.”

However images – taken by Global Witness as part of an investigation – seem to indicate environmental harm already executed.

Aerial photos present forest loss and sediment run-off into waters which can be residence to biodiverse coral reefs.

International Witness advised the BBC that land use for mining, throughout a number of small islands within the archipelago, elevated by 500 hectares – equal to about 700 soccer pitches – between 2020 and 2024.

Some conservationists, including the organisation Greenpeace, are involved that the federal government’s choice may very well be reversed by authorized motion by the mining corporations.

And one firm that operates on Gag island, which has notably wealthy deposits of nickel, has been allowed to proceed its operations. The federal government stated it could order the “restoration of the ecological impacts that happen” there.

Coral reef conservationist and ecologist Dr Mark Erdmann advised BBC Information that he was “blown away, and so joyful” concerning the authorities’s choice to revoke the mining permits.

“That is the worldwide epicenter of marine biodiversity,” he advised BBC Information.

Dr Erdmann has labored in Raja Ampat for greater than 20 years and helped arrange the community of marine protected areas there. He is likely one of the founders of a shark rewilding undertaking, known as Reshark, based mostly within the area.

He added: “It was a voice of shock from the Indonesian folks that made the federal government concentrate.”

However this ecological controversy is an instance of how the demand for the metals wanted to energy battery know-how – for electrical automobiles and different low carbon power sources – can harm the atmosphere.

Indonesia now accounts for greater than half of the world’s nickel mine manufacturing, in response to a report last year by the Institute for Vitality Economics and Monetary Evaluation.

And whereas the wonder and biodiversity of the Raja Ampat has drawn consideration to mining exercise there, mining has been linked to ecological harm elsewhere too.

A 2024 study by Forest Watch Indonesia discovered a hyperlink between the lack of forests related to mining exercise and elevated native flooding and landslides.

Growing demand for so-called crucial minerals is shaping financial choices world wide. It was the driving power for President Trump’s current government order to jumpstart the mining of metallic nodules from the deep sea in worldwide waters. It’s a move that China has called illegal.

Dr Erdmann identified that balancing financial progress with environmental safety was a specific dilemma for Indonesia. “It has quite a lot of nickel – by some means, a few of it’ll come out of the bottom,” he stated.

Dr Michaela Guo Ying Lo, from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (Cube) and the College of Kent, led a study in 2024 of the impression of mining on native communities in Sulawesi. The big Indonesian island has a lot of the nation’s nickel deposits.

The analysis confirmed that mining exercise lowered poverty barely, however that there was vital “worsening of environmental well-being” together with elevated native water and air air pollution.

“Indonesia is positioning itself globally within the nickel market,” Dr Lo advised BBC Information. “But it surely’s necessary to not neglect what’s taking place domestically.”

Imam Shofwan, an environmental campaigner from an organisation known as Jatam, based mostly in Jakarta, advised BBC Information: “They are saying nickel is an answer to the local weather disaster. But it surely’s inflicting deforestation and destroying farmland.”

He additionally identified to the BBC that low-lying coastal areas, the place some nickel deposits are discovered, are among the locations most weak to the consequences of local weather change, together with rising sea ranges.

Dr Erdmann commented: “The nickel dilemma is a horrible one.

“Mining is at all times going to be environmentally impactful and all of us are likely to suppose that electrification is a good suggestion. However what’s the acceptable harm that we’re prepared to see?”

The BBC contacted the Indonesian authorities for remark, however didn’t obtain a reply.