The metal that powers electric vehicles is being mined at a cost to coastal communities, and above all to women, that no climate ambition can justify.
Indonesia’s nickel rush is usually told as a story of industrial ambition. In 2025, the country supplied more than 60% of the world’s nickel, according to the International Nickel Study Group. US Geological Survey figures show mine output rising from about 168,500 tonnes in 2016 to 2.6m tonnes, while the number of smelters grew from two to more than 60. Carmakers and governments looking to move away from petrol and diesel depend on this supply. Jakarta has made “down streaming”, or processing nickel at home instead of exporting raw ore, a central part of its economic policy.
But the people living beside the mines, jetties and smelters rarely feature in this account. The benefits are not as straightforward as the industry’s expansion figures suggest. Walhi, an Indonesian environmental network, estimates that about 70% of the country’s nickel goes into stainless steel rather than batteries. The figure is the organisation’s own estimate, but it raises a question about how much of the boom can really be attributed to the green transition. In Sulawesi, communities are watching their land and water change to supply an industry whose most celebrated products remain out of their reach.
Morowali offers a striking example. Its industrial park covers about 5,500 hectares and employs an estimated 90,000 people. Official statistics put the regency’s GDP per capita above 900m rupiah, about US$52,000, among the highest in Indonesia. That figure measures economic output, however, not what residents earn. One researcher who has studied been independently verified and needs an official investigation. It is a deeply serious allegation, and one that should not be left unresolved. the sector for two decades estimates that more than 95% of the value created leaves the region, going to investors and suppliers elsewhere. Many workers have come from other provinces or abroad, and send their wages home. The industrial park has created jobs, but the wealth it generates is not necessarily staying in Morowali.
For families who depend on fishing and farming, the damage is more tangible. Ponds that once yielded millions of rupiah per harvest now produce little or nothing. Fishers spend more on fuel to travel farther for smaller catches, as rain washes red soil from cleared hillsides into coastal waters. Some landowners were offered a few thousand rupiah per square metre, less than a kilo of prawns from the same pond would fetch. The payment might cover immediate expenses, but the land had provided an income year after year. Once it was gone, so was that source of security.
Women are often left to manage the shortfall. They are the ones trying to make food budgets stretch, keep children fed and find money for household expenses as fishing income falls. Some borrow against future earnings or take up work collecting plastic waste for a few thousand rupiah a kilo. Others have lost livelihoods of their own, including shellfish gathering, small-scale trading and ferrying passengers across rivers now crowded with industrial traffic. Their work may be less visible in accounts of the nickel boom, but its loss is felt in the everyday finances of their families.
Pollution brings further concerns. Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, has documented a high incidence of respiratory infections in Morowali, as well as river and seawater pollution exceeding permitted standards. Walhi counts about 5,000 cases near one coal plant in 2022–23. These figures do not establish what caused each illness; that requires independent medical and environmental testing. Residents say they have not received enough answers. For families living near mines and smelters, the lack of clear evidence is hardly reassuring when the water, air and livelihoods they depend on are already under pressure.
Women working in the industry face other risks. Komnas HAM has raised concerns about inadequate protective equipment, unequal treatment of local and foreign workers, and discrimination and gender-based violence, particularly where safe reporting mechanisms are lacking. A smelter explosion at Morowali in December 2023 killed 21 people. For workers who depend on these jobs, questions about safety cannot be separated from the promise of economic opportunity.
For the Indigenous Bajau, a sea people whose lives are closely tied to the water, the changes reach into their culture as well as their livelihoods. Birth rites associated with clean seawater have reportedly been put on hold. Forest paths once used to trade fish for vegetables have been closed, and fishers pushed into unfamiliar waters face new dangers, including crocodile attacks. Walhi says 12 Bajau children have died this year on Kabaena island after falling into sedimentclouded water in which their parents could not see them. The claim has not Across Southeast Sulawesi, Walhi says about 154 mining licences have been issued, with concessions in every district except the provincial capital, Kendari.
Many of the smelters processing the ore are powered by captive coal plants, built to supply individual industrial sites. The contradiction is hard to ignore. Nickel is increasingly promoted as part of the shift to cleaner transport, yet producing it can mean more coal combustion and more pollution for the communities living nearby. Residents in several villages say they were never consulted before mining began, despite legal requirements for public participation. In one flood-hit district, accounts describe officials surveying by drone and declaring there was no pollution without taking samples, before a dam at a mine site reportedly gave way.
There have been some legal challenges. In July 2025, a district court ruled that a smelter operator had unlawfully polluted the environment and ordered restoration. Walhi says the order has not been carried out. Other cases raise questions about enforcement. A state miner’s operations were suspended in 2023 amid a corruption inquiry, without rehabilitation, yet a production target of 3.4m tonnes was approved in April 2026. Payments known as “dust money”, meant to compensate communities for living amid pollution, arrive irregularly, if at all. In some places, residents receive sacks of rice as barges leave. Activists also describe women being threatened with prison for questioning environmental assessments. Communities are expected to live with the consequences even when they struggle to get their complaints heard.
Most affected families do not necessarily want the industry to disappear. Their relatives work in the industrial parks, driving trucks and guarding machinery. What they want is a fair deal: proper prices for land, compensation that arrives when promised, and a say in decisions that affect their lives. Jakarta should halt new mine and smelter permits until pollution is controlled, enforce existing environmental laws, respect Indigenous peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent, and stop approving new captive coal plants. An independent inquiry into the effects of nickel mining on women and children is also needed. Battery manufacturers and carmakers should disclose their suppliers, pay for independent audits and set deadlines for reducing emissions across their nickel supply chains.
Indonesia’s nickel industry is helping to power a global transition, but the costs are falling heavily on people who have little say in how it unfolds. The country’s constitution says its natural wealth should serve the greatest prosperity of its people. In Sulawesi, that promise deserves to be measured against the lives of those living closest to the mines.
*Tanya Mittal is a Master’s researcher in Gender, Policy and Inequalities at the London School of Economics. She has previously worked with PLR Chambers and FICCI on policy research and public affairs.
