location: Southeast Sulawesi

location: Southeast Sulawesi

Social media activity version | Lean version

In eastern Indonesia, forest bird trade flies quietly under social media radar
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, a young documentary filmmaker began quietly joining a growing number of Facebook community groups run by traders of rare Indonesian birds.
- Over the following two years, a reporting team from several news organizations uncovered a wide network of actors offering species for sale for as little as 250,000 rupiah ($15). These individuals included a serving naval officer.
- One shop owner selling birds in Morowali, the epicenter of Indonesia’s nickel mining and smelting boom, said they began trading in birds in 2018, after ships began docking in the local port bringing oil and cement.

Activists slam coal pollution from Indonesia’s production of ‘clean’ batteries
- Indonesia’s electric vehicle ambitions have seen it ramp up refining of nickel, a key component in EV batteries, at industrial estates springing up across the country.
- However, these smelters are powered by purpose-built coal-fired plants, which environmental activists say are causing illness, killing crops and polluting fish farms.
- Among the coal plants that activists say are polluting local villages are those that power the nickel smelters owned by Chinese companies PT Gunbuster Nickel Industry (GNI), PT Virtue Dragon Nickel Industry (VDNI) and PT Obsidian Stainless Steel (OSS).
- While Indonesia has stated its commitment to transitioning away from coal in powering its grid, these industry-exclusive “captive” plants aren’t subject to any kind of phaseout, and are in fact encouraged by regulation.

Red floods near giant Indonesia nickel mine blight farms and fishing grounds
- Farming communities in the shadow of Sulawesi’s giant Pomalaa nickel mining area say their fields have been flooded with red water, possibly laterite waste from the mining operations.
- Local farmers blame flooding from the mine for longer harvest cycles and reduced productivity.
- Indonesia’s biggest environmental NGO says the government should review mining permits to safeguard rice fields.

Here come the sunbirds: New species from Indonesia’s Wakatobi Islands
- A group of researchers have identified several new species of sunbirds whose range spans from Africa to Australia and the tropical Wakatobi Islands in central Indonesia.
- They also found evidence that could divide the more widespread species of the olive-backed and black sunbirds, Cinnyris jugularis and Leptocoma aspasia.
- The researchers said their findings reiterated recommendations to protect the Wakatobi Islands as an endemic bird area, especially as so much remains unknown to the scientific community.
- The tiny archipelago is also part of the Wallacea region that many scientists consider “a living laboratory” for the study of evolution with endemic species being newly identified to science in recent years.

Sulawesi islanders grieve land lost to nickel mine
- The Harita Group holds a nickel mining concession covering about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) on Wawonii Island.
- The arrival of the mine has divided the community between those who support the development and farmers hoping to retain their fruit and nut trees.
- One man described his grief as the grave of his son was exhumed and moved as a result of the mine.

Amid rising pressure, Indonesia’s sea-based communities adapt to change
- A growing population, destruction of coral reefs, and the loss of traditional fishing methods all threaten the way of life of traditional communities in Indonesia whose livelihoods have for generations depended on the sea.
- Among them are the seafaring Bajo people, nomads of the waters between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, who say their resources “are declining day by day.”
- In the Sangihe Islands in the archipelago’s northeast, modern nets and outboard motors have replaced the bamboo gear and sampan boats used by local fishing communities.

Indonesia’s Womangrove collective reclaims the coast from shrimp farms
- A women’s collective in Indonesia’s Tanakeke Islands has restored dozens of hectares of mangroves since its founding six years ago.
- The Womangrove collective focuses on replanting abandoned shrimp and fish farms that were originally established in cleared mangrove areas, and have to date planted more than 110,000 seedlings.
- Indonesia has more mangrove area than any other country in the world, but has lost half of it in the past 30 years, mostly to shrimp and fish farms.

In Indonesia’s Sulawesi, a community works to defuse blast-fishing crisis
- Decades of blast fishing have destroyed much of the coral reefs off Indonesia’s Lora village, reducing fish catches.
- Increased law enforcement and advocacy by NGOs has helped roll back these destructive practices, but other threats loom, including increasingly unpredictable weather and competition from large trawlers.
- A community organization is seeking to have the region zoned as a conservation area.

New shrews just dropped: Sulawesi yields up 14 freshly described species
- A new study has described 14 new species of shrew endemic to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
- The shrews, all from the genus Crocidura, were identified from 1,368 specimens collected from 2010-2018 on 12 mountains and in two lowland areas across Sulawesi.
- This gives the island a much richer diversity of Crocidura shrew life than others in the Indonesian archipelago, which the researchers attribute to the varied landscape.
- They add it’s likely that even more species have yet to be described, and say there needs to be more research into Sulawesi’s biodiversity.

Whale shark stranding points to silting of Indonesia’s Kendari Bay
- Volunteers and officials successfully pushed a whale shark back out to sea after it got stranded in shallow water in Indonesia’s Kendari Bay.
- The incident, which one rescuer said was a first, has highlighted the consequences of the rapid silting of the bay amid a spate of development projects in the area.
- The clearing of land allows dirt to run into waterways, with the accumulated sediment halving the depth of Kendari Bay and making flood prevention more difficult.
- Amid the silting, fishing catches have declined and there are indications of heavy-metal contamination of the water.

Indonesian anti-graft enforcers set their sights on a new target: corporations
- Indonesia’s anti-graft agency, the KPK, is widely recognized for its prowess at catching corrupt government officials.
- The agency has been less successful, however, at prosecuting companies on the other side of that corruption.
- Recently, the KPK has begun to rethink its approach, with potential implications for natural resource firms that pay bribes in exchange for permits.

In Indonesia, a tourism village holds off a nickel mine — for now
- Residents of the island of Kabaena in Indonesia registered their home as a “tourism village” seven years ago in a bid to ward off a planned nickel mine.
- They say they fear that mining activity will disrupt their water sources and despoil the forests that they hold sacred.
- Mining activities have proliferated in other districts in the province, driven by a boom for the nickel used in rechargeable batteries and stainless steel.
- While the notion of being a tourism village has meant mining can’t proceed here, the villagers say they’re not getting the full support they expected to boost their economy this way.

Watchdog denounces arrests of four anti-mining activists in Indonesia
- Police in South Sulawesi province have arrested a resident of the island of Wawonii in connection to his opposition to plans to mine the island for nickel.
- The arrest comes just over a week after police detained and charged three university students over a protest against iron ore mining operations in Bima district, West Nusa Tenggara province.
- Environmental activists have called the recent arrests part of a pattern of systematic efforts to silence community-led opposition to destructive mining activities.
- Activists have called on the government and police to release the four protesters and investigate their allegations of violations by the mining companies in question.

Indonesia protests: Land bill at center of unrest
- In recent weeks, Indonesia has seen its largest mass protests since the “people power” movement that forced President Suharto to step down in 1998.
- Among a variety of pro-democracy demands, the protesters want lawmakers to scrap a controversial bill governing land use in the country.
- The bill defines new crimes critics say could be used to imprison indigenous and other rural citizens for defending their lands against incursions by private companies.
- It also sets a two-year deadline by which citizens must register their lands with the government, or else watch them pass into state control. Activists say the provision would deal a “knockout blow” to the nation’s indigenous rights movement.

For one Indonesian fisher, saving caught turtles is a moral challenge
- Sea turtles are protected species under Indonesian law, but continue to be caught and killed for food and ornaments in many parts of the country.
- Official wildlife conservation agencies are typically underfunded, and large-scale conservation programs run by NGOs are far from effective, a conservationist says.
- But in a fishing village on the island of Sulawesi, a lone fisherman is playing his part by buying live turtles accidentally caught by other fishers and usually injured, and caring for them until they heal and can be released back into the ocean.
- Conservationists have welcomed his initiative and intent, but raised questions about his expertise, with some of the more than 20 turtles he has cared for so far dying.

Indonesian villagers fighting planned mine garner national support
- Indonesia’s national human rights commission and the national ombudsman have weighed in on a dispute over plans to mine nickel on the remote island of Wawonii.
- Residents have protested over the plans, which they say threaten their fishing grounds and freshwater sources.
- Local authorities have sent out mixed messages on whether the project will proceed, while the company involved has continued clearing villagers’ land.
- The rights commission has called for a halt to criminal investigations of the land defenders, while the ombudsman has called for all the permits to be scrapped.

On an island coveted by miners, villagers prepare to raise a ruckus
- Residents of the Indonesian island of Wawonii believed they had won a long-running battle against mining companies with concessions on their land after authorities promised to revoke the permits in March.
- However, only nine of the 15 permits were scrapped, while at least one of the remaining companies continues offering to buy out residents and clearing land.
- Organizers of the earlier protests are now bracing for an even more intensive campaign, in the hope of drawing enough attention to their cause that the government steps in and cancels the remaining permits.
- One of the companies involved says the land belongs to the state and the villagers have no claim to it.

For Indonesia’s Kendari Bay, silting is a death sentence
- Researchers say the Kendari Bay, on the island of Sulawesi, is rapidly disappearing.
- The main culprit is land clearing for development projects around the bay and the rivers the feed it. The land clearing releases sediment into the water that eventually settles on the bottom of the bay.
- The bay may be decades from filling up completely, but studies suggest hope of saving its plant and animal life may already be lost.

Indonesian flooding disaster bears the hallmarks of agriculture and mining impacts
- Last June, North Konawe, a land of hills and valleys on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, was struck by devastating floods, displacing thousands of people.
- In the wake of the disaster, a public debate has ensued over the cause. Some government agencies have concluded that deforestation by plantation and mining companies exacerbated the floods.
- Some villages, including the riverside community of Tapuwatu, were almost completely washed away.

For artisanal fishers, fish fences are an easy, but problematic, option
- The widespread use of fish fences by fishing communities in tropical countries leads to extensive economic, social and environmental damage, a new study finds.
- The technique involves stringing a net along stakes typically set in an intertidal flat, where it traps fish as the tide goes out. But the practice results in the indiscriminate catch of juvenile fish, threatening the sustainability of fish stocks.
- In the area studied, in eastern Indonesia, the fences are also a source of social tension, where they’re the exclusive domain of the island-based ethnic group and denied to the seafaring Bajo community.
- The researchers have called for restrictions on the use of fish fences, but acknowledge that getting fishermen to start going out to sea to fish will be difficult, given the low risk and high convenience that fish fences afford.

In Indonesia’s relentless infrastructure push, taint of corruption weighs on environment
- Investigators in Indonesia have arrested the mayor and former mayor of the city of Kendari for allegedly taking bribes in the awarding of a contract to build a land bridge to a new port set to open next year.
- While the investigation is centered on corruption in the bidding process, activists have urged a thorough look into likely environmental violations, given that the project involves sea reclamation and forest-clearing.
- The project continues, but has already claimed the livelihoods of the fishing community on whose tiny island the new container port is being built.

Indonesian graftbusters put a price tag on environmental crime
- Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency, the KPK, has alleged huge losses incurred by the state as a result of illegal mining permits handed out by a provincial governor. The severity of the charge relies heavily on estimates of environmental damage.
- The KPK sees the move as a breakthrough that could lead to heavier sentences and fines in corruption cases in Indonesia’s natural resources sector.
- NGOs, however, say the agency is pulling its punches and should have cracked down harder, including seeking fines in the same amount as the alleged losses to the state.
- In a twist in the case, the expert who helped derive the monetary figure for the environmental damages now faces a lawsuit from the defendant’s team, which claims he presented an inaccurate calculation.

Facebook being used for illegal reptile trade in the Philippines
- Researchers from TRAFFIC, who monitored 90 Facebook groups over a three-month period in 2016, recorded 2,245 live reptile advertisements representing more than 5,000 individual animals from 115 taxa.
- Most advertisements were for the ball python and the Burmese python, and also included critically endangered species such as the Philippine crocodile and the Philippine forest turtle.
- At least 80 percent of the documented online traders on Facebook were selling reptiles illegally, the report concluded.

Indonesia coal power push neglects rural households, chokes urban ones
- The Indonesian government’s push to generate an additional 35 GW of electricity capacity by 2019 relies heavily on building new coal-fired power plants.
- Observers say the program focuses too much on the already saturated Java-Bali grid, while ignoring millions of households in more remote areas.
- The preference for generating power from coal could also threaten the health of up to 30 million people living in areas slated for power plant construction, a recent study from Greenpeace says.

Indonesians plant trees to nurse seagrass back to health in Wakatobi
- Long understudied and misunderstood, seagrass is now being recognized for its importance around the world as a carbon sink but also as an essential part of people’s daily lives.
- But it is also being lost at an incredibly fast rate, equal to the loss of rainforests, according to researchers.
- On an island in Indonesia’s Wakatobi National Park, communities are planting trees and educating local people to save seagrass, for present and future generations.

Expedition finds serious damage to Southeast Sulawesi’s marine ecosystem
- A WWF-led expedition in Southeast Sulawesi found severely reduced hard-coral cover in nine out of 38 sampling sites.
- Researchers point to sediment created by the province’s nickel mining industry as one of the primary drivers of reef destruction.
- An outbreak of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish is also contributing to the problem.

Indonesia’s antigraft agency strives to rein in the mining sector
- Indonesia’s anticorruption agency has become involved in a number of initiatives to improve governance of natural resources in the archipelago.
- One such effort, focused on the mining sector, involves 12 provinces and has resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of permits.
- This initiative, known as Korsup Minerba, recently produced an assessment of the provinces’ progress in reining in the miners under their watch.

Indonesia’s ore-smelting ambitions augur rain of poison in Sulawesi
- Chinese companies are rushing to build smelters in Southeast Sulawesi, one of the world’s most abundant sources of nickel.
- Mining in the Indonesian province has wreaked havoc on the environment and people’s health, but the problems receded somewhat when Jakarta banned raw ore exports for companies without smelters in 2014.
- Now, dozens of smelters are in the pipeline, and it is unclear whether officials will be able to keep the reawakened industry in check.

Are prosthetic reefs the answer to Indonesia’s coral die-off?
- Manmade “fish apartments” are springing up all over Indonesia in response to the shrinking acreage of natural reefs.
- The popular Biorock system for reef building was dreamed up in the 1990s by a German scientist who envisioned floating cities made of the electrically charged material.
- Marine biologists give Biorock mixed reviews as a conservation tool.

Trouble in paradise: Wakatobi’s ‘sea gypsies’ adjust to life in a marine park
- National park authorities have to be on the lookout for a gamut of infractions, from mangrove poaching to harvesting coral rock and more.
- The Bajau ‘sea gypsies’ find themselves marginalized by a council system established to give locals a voice.
- Like nearly all of Indonesia’s marine protected areas, Wakatobi has a large human population.

After the NGOs: can Wakatobi National Park survive on its own?
- The island paradise of Wakatobi is a trailblazer among Indonesia’s 23 national marine parks.
- Park guards and local communities have been well-trained to protect the park, and they have the backing of the local regent.
- The scaling back of NGO seed funding for the park, however, raises questions about its well-being going forward.

The Holy Trinity: how Wakatobi’s coral stays healthy and diverse
- The world-renowned diving destination of Wakatobi is one of Indonesia’s oldest and best-supported marine protected areas.
- Mangroves and seagrass along with coral form the pillars of an interdependent ecosystem known as the “holy trinity,” but conservationists are struggling to protect them all.
- The end of NGO partnerships with the Wakatobi National Park administration raises questions about the long-term viability of the initiative.

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