No action yet against nickel pollution in Indonesian coastal villages
Government has recorded multiple environmental violations at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, but locals are yet to see action
JAKARTA, Indonesia (MNTV) – The government has recorded multiple environmental violations at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, but locals are yet to see action, reports Dialogue Earth.
The sea lapping at the shore of Kurisa, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, has turned red. Located in the Morowali regency, this village is in the vicinity of the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), a sprawling nickel processing hub.
The project, a joint venture between China’s Tsingshan Group and the Indonesian company Bintang Delapan (Eight Stars), hosts over 50 manufacturers. Their facilities produce nickel-based goods, including steel products and electric vehicle battery materials.
A Kurisa elder named Lukman, 54, describes how hot, pungent waste flows from the IMIP to the sea, rendering it unfishable. He says this has cost the area’s fishers their livelihoods, and that they have been forced to scavenge for discarded plastic bottles as an alternative way to earn a living.
“Fish can no longer be cultivated here [in fish farms],” notes Lukman. He cultivated grouper until six years ago, after which he says the sea became more polluted. These days he runs a boarding house. Those who wish to go fishing must now sail around three kilometres further out, he notes.
Its polluted coast is just one of the issues facing Kurisa and several other villages surrounding the nickel complex. Villagers also live with air pollution from the coal plants that power the IMIP’s operations.
“No one from the relevant agencies [or] the health agency, including the central, regional, or provincial government, has considered [our concerns]. We’re asking for at least some attention to our health issues. There’s been absolutely nothing… we’ve just been left alone,” says a villager.
The government imposed sanctions on the IMIP for environmental violations. Months later, however, villagers and NGOs monitoring the situation say they have yet to see action being taken.
Health issues
Nurman Hidayat, 42, is a villager of Bahomakmur, immediately to the west of the IMIP. He says locals have been afflicted by coughs, colds and fevers, which he attributes to emissions of sulphur dioxide and the burning of coal.
A 2024 study by the Association for Transformation of Justice (TuK) Indonesia and Tadulako University highlighted that the average concentrations of PM 10 and PM 2.5 – as well as sulphur dioxide in samples taken in 2023 – exceeded government standards for safety in three villages surrounding the IMIP, including Bahomakmur. The study described “serious health risks for local residents”.
The study noted coughing and sneezing were symptoms present in over 70 per cent of the study’s 91 survey respondents from the three villages.
The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), an environmental NGO, claimed in October 2024 that coal ash had been found in the classrooms of two schools in Labota, another Morowali village.
They were several hundred metres away from the IMIP plants. Six students developed coughs and shortness of breath, it noted. “The air here is really not suitable if we were to stay,” says Lukman.
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