Indonesia’s killer commodity

The workers paying the price for Indonesia’s nickel boom

Critical minerals producers are lauded by the government for creating jobs and generating revenue, and they market themselves as socially responsible. But they are neglecting the safety of their workers under a cover of weak regulations and government protection.

Alfian Al-Ayubby - 14 Jun, 2024

On 13 June 2024, a nickel smelting furnace at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Central Sulawesi caught fire and exploded, sending two workers to hospital. A year earlier, on 24 December 2023, a smelting furnace at the same facility also caught fire and exploded, killing 13 workers on the spot; several others late succumbed to their injuries later in hospital, resulting in the death of 21 workers. Another 39 workers suffered severe burns in the 2023 incident, with some becoming disabled and unable to work.

These tragic events expose a major flaw in the Indonesian government’s ambition to establish the country as the world’s nickel processing hub. Indeed, the Indonesian government’s policy of resource nationalism, particularly through nickel downstreaming, has successfully transformed Indonesia’s position in the global markets for this newly ‘critical’ mineral, with rising production figures, an increasing market share.

According to the International Nickel Study Group, Indonesia’s share of global nickel exports surged from 20% in 2015 to 80% in 2020. The export value of nickel-related commodities, particularly stainless steel, ferronickel, and battery materials, soared from US$6 billion in 2013 to US$30 billion in 2022. As of July 2023, Indonesia had 43 nickel smelters in operation, with an additional 28 under construction and 24 in the planning stages. The majority of investors are from China, with additional investment coming from the United States, Brazil and Australia.

The nickel downstreaming policy has been spruiked by the government as a boon for workers as well as the national balance sheet. As President Joko Widodo said during a visit to a Sulawesi smelter, downstreaming “…will create jobs, for instance, 27 thousand workers can be recruited in this company. Also, it will generate tax income for the country”.

In reality, downstreaming prioritises economic value and tax revenue over worker welfare. Officials have portrayed it as Indonesia’s  path to becoming a developed country, while turning a blind eye to pressing social and labour concerns arising from the policy.

An industry too important to regulate?

A focus on the business practices of two major nickel groups: Tsingshan Holding Group and Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry reveal the contradictions in the downstreaming policy. The influence of these Chinese companies in Indonesia’s nickel industry is undeniable. They are the backbone of the downstreaming effort, controlling over half of the nation’s nickel production and operating vast smelters employing thousands of workers.

Tsingshan operates two smelter parks: IMIP in Central Sulawesi, and the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) facility in North Maluku. Each park houses dozens of companies involved in the extraction and processing of minerals. Up until now, IMIP in general has employed approximately 120,000 workers, approximately 90% of whom are Indonesian; the rest are Chinese. Meanwhile, IWIP claims to have employed more than 24,000 local workers in 2021 with a goal of 36,000 in 2022.

Jiangsu Delong has three smelting companies: Obsidian Stainless Steel (OSS) and Virtue Dragon Nickel Industry (VDNI) in Southeast Sulawesi, and Gunbuster Nickel Indonesia (GNI) in Central Sulawesi. Since 2023, VDNI and OSS together have employed more than 10,000 workers, and GNI has also employed more than 10,000 workers.

Most of the nickel processing facilities, including those owned by these two groups, have been classified by the Jokowi administration as part of the National Strategic Projects (Proyek Strategis Nasional, or PSN). The majority of Chinese-funded energy and infrastructure projects are included in the PSN (e.g., Jakarta–Bandung high speed rail, industrial parks, toll roads) and receive policy and security prioritisation. In addition, the Widodo administration has strengthened the protection of investments in the nickel and smelting sector through the enactment of the Omnibus Law on Job Creation 2022 and its derivative regulations.

Often hailed as investments that can boost the economy and create jobs, these smelters pose significant problems. These problems include poverty, pollution, tax evasion, low wages, poor working conditions and poor occupational safety and health (OSH) standards. A recent report found that smelters benefit only a handful of people, while workers struggle to make ends meet and neighbouring communities remain impoverished. In 2017, IMIP was reported to be in tax arrears and faced a fine of IDR 60 billion (US$3.7 billion). Similarly, since 2021 VDNI has owed IDR 74.5 billion (US$4.6 billion) in tax arrears and has yet to pay the amount, despite repeated requests from the tax office.

Workplace fatalities and impunity

Another issue of great concern in the nickel smelting sector is the risk of occupational diseases and recurrent fatal accidents at work. According to some reports, since IMIP began its operations in 2015, there have been tens of thousands of cases of respiratory disease among workers. Similar conditions have been experienced by workers at IWIP and OSS. These illnesses are caused by coal pollution, ore dust, and sulphur odours caused by chemicals used in nickel processing.

Other reports also document the recurrence of fatal accidents at nickel processing facilities over the past decade. A database of workplace accidents I compiled from various sources, including company reports and local media outlets, shows that  between 2019 and 2024, 96 accidents occurred at nickel smelters in Indonesia, resulting in the deaths of 97 workers. Of these, 43 accidents occurred at Tsingshan smelters, resulting in the deaths of 56 workers, and 33 accidents occurred at Jiangsu Delong smelters, resulting in the deaths of 26 workers.

The number of work accidents in the nickel and smelting sector is indeed a relatively small percentage of the number of work accidents in Indonesia. In 2021 the number of work accidents was 234,370; in 2022, this figure rose to 265,334; and in 2023, it rose to 350,826.

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However, in all cases of workplace accidents, the government often sees them as isolated events born of individual misconduct. In the case of occupational diseases in the nickel and smelting sector, for instance, workers can be blamed for not wearing personal protective equipment properly, whereas in terms of work accidents, workers can be blamed for not following work procedures.

But the issue of workplace accidents is in fact a structural problem. In the nickel and smelting sector, the data shows that workplace accidents have a similar pattern: explosions, fires, and heavy vehicle collisions. This is a systemic problem arising from weak regulations and lack of government supervision, which leads employers to apply poor OHS standards, seen in the form of long working hours, overtime, and the use of dangerous chemical substances and poorly maintained work equipment.

In this context, corporations conduct their business with impunity guaranteed by the government. Such impunity is usually reserved for politically and financially influential investors, especially those whose companies are included in the PSN. Following the fatal accident at IMIP on 24 December 2023, police named two Chinese workers as suspects for causing the explosion in the smelter furnace. One of these suspects was a financial supervisor. Many critics have condemned the police action as an attempt to scapegoat the foreign workers.

In fact, top management should be held accountable because there is a chain of responsibility in the workplace and in the organisation of production in general. Labour inspectors are also responsible for failing to conduct routine inspections in the workplaces where fatal accidents have occurred repeatedly. The legal case of this accident is still unclear. The police have submitted the IMIP case to the prosecutor’s office, but no further action has been taken.

Union demands

An alliance of trade unions at the local level in the nickel smelting area and their affiliates in the national level, along with NGOs, have repeatedly demanded improvements in working conditions in the workplace and the strengthening of OSH systems in the nickel smelters. Some of their more detailed demands include the need for a robust OSH regulation in the mineral processing sector, particularly nickel. Unlike related sectors such as mining, the smelting sector does not yet have such regulations. This type of regulation will ensure clear and systematic oversight from the national level to the workplace level.

In addition, this advocacy coalition is demanding an increase in the number of specialised inspectors in heavy sectors such as mining and smelting, and the assignment of these inspectors near accident-prone industrial areas where they can be easily reached by trade unions. So far, labour inspectors have only been stationed in provincial capitals with limited supervisory capabilities and tend to collude with company managements. The unions are also calling for the establishment of an independent national OSH commission with oversight and investigative powers to monitor business practices, including those in the mining and smelting sector. Indonesia already has a National OSH Council, but it only provides advice to the Ministry of Labour and has no oversight authority over employers.

Finally, unions advocate for the involvement of workers and themselves in the monitoring of OSH in the workplace. Although within-firm OSH committees are mandated by existing regulations and their members consist of both labour and management representatives, these committees often serve only as an advisory bodies to management and lack independent oversight. The involvement of unions makes OSH oversight more independent and there is no fear of retaliation from the workers to report companies’ misconduct.

So far, there has been no policy from the government and smelter companies in response to genuine demands from unions. On the one hand, the Jokowi administration has repeatedly warned smelters to improve working conditions and prioritise worker safety, yet has made no attempts to strengthen labour supervision and law enforcement. On the other hand, smelters have become more aggressive in spending on public relations campaigns: the GNI smelter paid Kompas, a major newspaper, to write a series of coverage on implementation of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

International pressure

As the Widodo administration nears its end, it’s likely that president-elect Prabowo Subianto will maintain his predecessor’s nickel policy without making substantial changes. However, Indonesia’s significant role in the global nickel market has put the country in the international spotlight. International pressure is needed to add strength to the pressure already put forward by workers and trade unions in the country.

After the passage of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, some US senators have objected to opening their market to Indonesia, citing issues related to human rights, environmental protection, and labour rights. The IRA restricts access to the US market for essential mineral exports from countries that do not have specific free trade agreements with the United States. Of course, the IRA is inseparable from underlying geopolitical tensions with China, and the trade war and de-risking in response to them. However, Indonesia appears concerned about the Act’s implementation. Jokowi has lobbied Biden on this matter, but as of now, no resolution has been reached.

Australia also needs to put pressure on Indonesia. Australia already has a Modern Slavery Act in place, which requires that certain entities operating there report on the risks of modern slavery within their supply chains, regardless of whether those risks occur domestically or internationally. The Sydney-based company Nickel Industries Limited, is currently investing in IMIP and IWIP. The US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report has in 2022 and 2023 highlighted the risks of forced labour in one or more nickel mining companies it says are ‘affiliated with the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative’, likely an allusion to Tsingshan and/or Jiangsu Delong. Unions and NGOs in Australia should stand in solidarity by putting pressure on the government and its corporations to warn Indonesia of the poor business practices in the nickel and smelting sector.

The growing demand for nickel, driven by the energy transition, will continue to seduce nickel-producing countries and corporations to force their workers to work overtime to increase productivity. Therefore, it’s crucial to continue mounting fierce international and domestic pressure to support unions and workers in fighting for their rights.

• About the Author

   Alfian Al-Ayubby

  Alfian Al-Ayubby is a writer and labour researcher based in Jakarta. He has been researching labour issues since 2013, and since 2018 has been conducting field research at coal-fired power plants and nickel smelters in Indonesia

Indonesia’s killer commodity

 

Clerics to coal miners: the decline of Indonesia’s Islamic civil society

Indonesia’s two largest Islamic organisations have accepted the Widodo administration’s offer of mining concessions to fund their activities. Critics inside and out say that they’ve sacrificed their function as independent civil society organisations by positioning themselves as partners of governments.

Alex Arifianto - 04 Sep, 202436

On 28 July 2024 Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second largest Islamic organisation, officially announced that it would accept an offer of mining concessions from President Joko Widodo’s government. This followed the decision of the nation’s largest Islamic organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which accepted their concession a month earlier.

Opponents within and outside both organisations have criticised their decisions to accept the mining concessions. Such criticism was often expressed on environmental grounds: NU and Muhammadiyah should not engage in mining activities, critics said, since doing so would mean depriving local communities—including those where their followers live—of their economic and communal rights.

Another line of argument against the adoption of the mining concessions is that once NU or Muhammadiyah agreed to accept them, it would endanger their reputation as independent and democratic civil society organisations.

Former president and NU leader Abdurrahman Wahid thought that NU’s autonomy from the state was necessary because the organisation seeks to promote “social transformation on a more complete and fundamental level.” He further defined social transformation within NU to include: freedom of speech, an impartial legal system, and economic and social equality. Similar sentiments were also expressed by Amien Rais as Muhammadiyah general chairman during the mid-1990s, when he stated that he wished to transform Indonesia’s leading modernist Muslim organisation into a pro-reform and pro-democracy movement.

As Robin Bush has written, by the mid-1990s many young NU activists responded to Wahid’s increasingly oppositional position to the Suharto regime by developing a  “civil society discourse” comprising three elements: NU autonomy vis-a-vis the state; opposition to conservative and radical Islamism; and the promotion of pluralism and tolerance.

NU-affiliated NGOs like the Institute for the Study and Development of Human Resources (Lakpesdam) regularly sponsored workshops featuring NU’s promotion of pluralism, religious tolerance, and human rights, alongside coursework on political education and participation, all directed to promote NU’s civil society discourse to a new generation of NU activists throughout Indonesia.

After Indonesia’s democratic transition, NU and Muhammadiyah resumed their political activism  by founding political parties: the National Awakening Party (PKB) for NU and the National Mandate Party (PAN) for Muhammadiyah. Politicians from both organisations received ministerial appointments and participated in national and regional legislative elections. From 1998 until 2014, both participated in national politics through the two parties, while contributing to civil, democratic political discourses in Indonesia.

The price of patronage

However, the relationship between the two religious CSOs and the state has changed under the Widodo presidency. Under pressure to counter the narratives of hardline Islamist groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Jokowi made NU his primary partner to counter FPI-like groups and to promote a “moderate” Indonesian Islam both domestically and worldwide.

Over his decade-long presidency Widodo has bestowed extensive patronage towards NU clerics and politicians. This patronage has taken the form of political appointments (e.g. Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, Minister of Religious Affairs Yaqut Cholil Qomas, and others) as well as financial benefits (e.g. subsidies toward NU-run pesantren boarding schools, credit facilities for shari’a-based cooperatives and rural financial institutions, and more).

During Widodo’s second term (2019––2024) NU received even more state patronage from the Religious Affairs Ministry, now under control of Minister for Religious Affairs Yaqut Cholil Qomas, who is the brother of NU chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf. Such patronage has included financial support towards construction of nearly two dozen NU-affiliated universities; a  religious moderation program that supports NU preachers and lecturers to promote “moderate Islam” in other ministries and state-owned enterprises suspected of being infiltrated by “radical’’ Islamic preachers and groups; and various state projects directed to support NU and its various affiliates (badan otonom).

This patronage has come at the price of NU’s ability to criticise, among other things, the recent legislation pushed by the Widodo administration that critics say has contributed to Indonesia’s ongoing democratic regression. This includes the 2019 revisions to anti-corruption laws that significantly weakened Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission, and the 2023 Criminal Code, which curtails freedom of expression and the rights of religious minorities and LGBTQ people.

Several NU public intellectuals, including prominent advocates of the organisation’s “civil society discourse” during the late 1990s and early 2000s, are now defending the Widodo administration’s policy and priorities, contradicting their earlier support for liberal democratic norms. Ulil Abshar Abdalla, co-founder of the Liberal Islam Movement (Jaringan Islam Liberal or JIL) and formerhead of NU’s Lakpesdam think tank, wrote the day after the February 2024 presidential elections that the victory of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka showed that the majority of Indonesians wanted to continue President Widodo’s policies. He claimed that the results showed that Indonesians “have other pressing interests” than safeguarding democracy, which he dismissed as an idea expressed primarily by “a few middle-class academics”.

My recent conversations with sources within NU have confirmed that following Ulil’s lead, NU is in the process of revising its position on state–civil society relations. Instead of being an independent and autonomous CSO—like what Wahid and other NU activists were advocating in the 1990s—NU now views itself as an integral partner of the Indonesian state. In the new mindset, NU, as an ulama-led organisation, is mandated by Islamic teachings “to assist and defend” the state from any potential threats, whether from radical Islamists or from other civil society actors who express critical views against the state and its policies. Meanwhile, the earlier NU ethos pioneered by Wahid is dismissed, according to my sources, as an idea inspired by liberal Western political thought that is not applicable to the contemporary Indonesian socio-political context.

It was within this context that in June 2024 NU formally announced its acceptance of a coal mining concession offered by the Jokowi administration by the then investment minister Bahlil Lahadalia. NU chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf publicly stated that his organisation agreed to accept the concession because “it needed all available revenue sources to fund the [its] activities—as long as they are religiously permissible (halal)”.

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Sources close to the NU leadership board I spoke with have suggested that the decision to accept mining concessions was also influenced by a concern that NU might receive fewer cabinet appointments and state patronage under the Prabowo administration, which will assume office on 20 October. Historically, Prabowo has developed closer relationships with Islamic leaders and activists from modernist-leaning organisations like Muhammadiyah and the Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council (Dewan Dakwah Islam Indonesia, or DDII). His relationship with figures like former Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin date back to the 1990s, when Prabowo was a mid-career army officer.

Prabowo has few similarly close relations with NU figures (though he has won the endorsement of senior NU officials, such as the organisation’s former chair Said Aqil Siradj, in his past presidential campaigns). His landslide victory in the 2024 Indonesian presidential election, and the overwhelming support from NU voters towards Prabowo, was largely attributed to Widodo’s tacit endorsement of his campaign, which led to the NU leadership supporting him as well. Accepting the state’s offer of mining concessions, my enquiries have suggested, was driven by NU leaders’ belief that mining income would be substantive enough to offset any potential downturns in state patronage from Prabowo.

Muhammadiyah takes the NU path

Muhammadiyah’s decision to accept mining licences is more puzzling. Unlike NU, Muhammadiyah is not considered a close ally of the outgoing president. It has either publicly opposed, or at least raised serious concerns about, many of Widodo’s major legislative initiatives, including the 2019 amendments to the Anti-Corruption Law, the 2020 Omnibus Law on Job Creation, and the 2023 Criminal Code. Muhammadiyah leaders have frequently issued statements criticising ethical and legal misconduct by Widodo and other senior officials.

Most recently, in November 2023 former KPK chief and current Muhammadiyah national board member Busyro Muqqodas declared that the Constitutional Court (MK) ruling that allowed Widodo’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka to stand for the vice presidency was a “poison affecting Indonesian democracy”. Muhammadiyah’s Law, Human Rights and Philosophy Council, which Busyro chairs, also issued a statement declaring that former MK chief justice Anwar Usman ought to be “dishonourably discharged from his position” for committing major violations of the MK’s code of ethics.

Sources close to the Muhammadiyah national board I recently interviewed revealed that the board had received significant pressure from the presidential palace to accept its offer of mining concessions, through one of the board’s members Muhadjir Effendy, who also serves in Widodo’s cabinet as Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs. According to these sources, Muhadjir forwarded Widodo’s message to the leadership board, stating that Muhammadiyah must accept this concession because it would otherwise be considered as a personal insult by the president, who feels he has done a great deal to support the “moderate” Islam promoted by both Muhammadiyah and NU. The message concluded that if Muhammadiyah continues to refuse the offer of mining concessions then it will not receive any state patronage—especially cabinet appointments—under the Prabowo administration.

Muhadjir, according to my contacts, also made a personal appeal to other Muhammadiyah board members, saying that he was the only person seeking to ensure that organisation still gets the kind of political benefits—both high-level appointments and other state patronage—from Widodo (even if the amount was much less than what NU received). For instance, Muhadjir’s ministerial office has run its own religious moderation program, staffed by Muhammadiyah activists and separate from the main moderation programs run by the NU-controlled Ministry of Religious Affairs. Given these considerations, Muhadjir implored other Muhammadiyah leaders to consider whether they really want to risk their organisation being left with nothing under Prabowo if they dare to refuse the mining concession offer. Due to these considerations, the leadership board finally decided to accept the concession as a “hedging” tactic to ensure that they will not lose favour of the outgoing president.

Muhammadiyah’s leadership also believes that unlike Widodo, who has primarily aligned himself with NU when it comes to promoting “moderate” Islam, Prabowo is more willing to accommodate Muhammadiyah, given his past close relations with the organisation’s figures. Hence, they expect him to give them ministerial and other key appointments. Muhammadiyah leaders are very keen to regain several ministries that its politicians have historically been appointed in the past, particularly the education ministry. Hence, its decision to accept the mining concessions is part of a ”pay-to-play” strategy to be in line for ministerial and other high-level appointments under the incoming administration.

Conclusion

Muhammadiyah and NU’s decision to accept mining concessions is part of a process of political bargaining both organisations are engaged in with Indonesia’s political establishment in anticipation of future appointments and patronage. For both organisations, their decision is a rational measure to retain their political influence and safeguard their financial interests amid the uncertainties surrounding the ongoing presidential transition.

Their decision to bargain with the state and accept the mining concessions has nonetheless diminished their credentials as independent civil society organisations — particularly among their own activists. It also raises serious questions about whether in the long run, both organisations will be able to retain their autonomy as civil society organisations and their willingness to speak out strongly against decisions made by the Prabowo administration that may have adverse effects not only on NU and Muhammadiyah’s constituencies, but on Indonesia’s democratic norms and institutions.

Mining in East Kalimantan (Photo: Ray Yen)

• About the Author

   Alex Arifianto

  Alex Arifianto is a Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Indonesia Programme at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. His ongoing research includes political Islam and the religious propagation (dakwa) activities of conservative Islamist organisations in state universities throughout Indonesia

Jokowi’s religious mining rule divides Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization

Asad Asnawi, Christ Belseran, Irfan Maulana
15 Jul 2024

In May 2024, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, signed a new regulation to enable the country’s religious organizations to become mining operators.
The policy has been criticized extensively by civil society groups, some of which view the move as the result of a political bargain for Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Islamic organization, to deliver votes to Jokowi’s chosen successor in the February 2024 presidential election.

Young people within Nahdlatul Ulama told Mongabay Indonesia that Indonesia’s largest Islamic group would be reneging on its environmental commitments if it were to follow through on plans to operate coal mining concessions.
See All Key Ideas

A widely criticized move by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to reform mining rules to bestow coal mining licenses on an allied religious organization is carving a rift between its executive leadership and Islamic activists in the community, sources told Mongabay Indonesia.

On May 30, the president, commonly known as Jokowi, signed a revision to existing mining rules to allow the country’s religious organizations to operate mining concessions.

The unorthodox reform was spearheaded by the country’s investment minister, Jokowi loyalist Bahlil Lahadalia, who has faced serious allegations of impropriety in the revocation and reissuance of mining permits.

In Jakarta, allowing faith groups to become mining operators has been widely interpreted as part of a quid pro quo for the country’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, for delivering votes to Jokowi ally Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo was elected president in February this year after a court led by Jokowi’s brother-in-law changed age limits to allow Jokowi’s son to run as Prabowo’s vice president.

Prabowo ran for high office in three previous elections over a 15-year period and was rejected by voters in all three contests.

Two-term president Jokowi has long enjoyed extraordinary popularity, according to surveys of Indonesian voters dating back a decade.

The ploy to hitch Jokowi’s 36-year-old inexperienced son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to the Prabowo ticket transformed opinion polls and propelled Prabowo to a landslide election win.

Civil society groups told Mongabay that the change was fraught with procedural and practical pitfalls.

“It’s nonsense,” Muhammad Jamil, head of the legal desk at the National Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), a watchdog group, told Mongabay Indonesia on May 1.

With a claimed 100 million followers, Nahdlatul Ulama is by far the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia. The decision on religious mining permits came as Islamic organizations were winning domestic and international praise for increased attention to biodiversity loss and climate change.

Many young Islamic activists inspired by this pivot to the environment have responded to Jokowi’s policymaking with dismay, interviews showed.

“This is fraught with conflicts of interest,” Asman Aziz, the deputy of an NU chapter in East Kalimantan province, told Mongabay Indonesia.

Six former concessions are set to be handed over to religious organizations, four in East Kalimantan and two in South Kalimantan province.

“When NU becomes joined up with the miners, all NU can do is sit back and reap the rewards,” said Asman in East Kalimantan. “It won’t be able to criticize any damage caused by mining.”   

Coal mining activities in Indonesia. Image by Teguh Suprayitno/Mongabay Indonesia.
A NU low

The country’s largest Islamic organization applied for a coal mining permit in East Kalimantan shortly after Jokowi’s office published Presidential Regulation No. 25 of this year (the rule that has enabled religious groups to obtain mining concessions).

In 2015, however, NU leaders issued an edict against the exploitation of natural resources at the organization’s Bahtsul Masail, a plenary in which Islamic scholars interrogate scripture to decide contemporary policy.

In recent years, civil society organizations and young people within the NU and Muhammadiyah organizations have sought to give environmental action greater centrality. That has sparked changes such as clerical bodies issuing fatwa, a Muslim religious edict, against some forms of environmental damage, as well as grassroots initiatives to foster sustainability.

“I urge the ulama and Muslim leaders to take an active role in conveying issues related to environmental damage — then we will take more concrete actions,” Indonesia’s vice president, Ma’ruf Amin, himself an Islamic cleric, told a gathering of Islamic leaders at the Congress of Muslims for Sustainable Indonesia at Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque in 2022.

Roy Murtadho, an NU member who also founded an Islamic boarding school in Bogor, a city just south of the nation’s capital, said that NU moonlighting as a mining magnate would amount to the organization reneging on its environmental commitments.

“Out of many NU congress decisions, the conversion of food-productive land for big business interests was deemed haram [forbidden by Islamic law] — environmental damage that led to social-ecological damage was haram,” Roy said.

Young activists worry NU could enter into an adversarial relationship with local communities or Indigenous groups. Ordinarily, the faith organization would typically be expected to advocate on behalf of people affected by land conversion.

Roy said the policy had the potential to instill recrimination in communities if individuals felt they could not speak against a mining operation out of fear of speaking against the faith.

Others point to the fraught nature of a dangerous business in which workplace accidents are common.

That could expose a faith organization to legal risks regarding culpability. Moreover, the mining business is awash with corruption and legalistic engineering among elites, and any allegations pertaining to illegality could throw NU into a crisis of legitimacy.

A

 coal barge transporting coal from from the mines to the sea in Central Kalimantan, 2013. Image by Andrew Taylor/WDM via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Money pit

“The problem is, so far we are not aware of any discussions between PBNU and PWNU regarding this plan — this is a big problem,” Azam said, referring to the national and regional boards of NU.

“It carries the name of the organization, so this should be discussed organizationally,” Azam added. “There is no open discussion on this issue.”

Azam has made representations to the national executive board that mining has caused extensive environmental damage in East Kalimantan. Around 49 children are recorded as having drowned in abandoned mining pits in the province.

“This thing about concessions is a very important strategic issue,” Asman said, adding that decision-making of this importance required the widest possible discussion.

Like many, Asman views the sudden coal patronage as a ploy to bind NU into political loyalty.

Izzuddin Zaky, the chair of a local NU chapter in Trenggalek district, East Java province, refrained from criticizing the leadership, but said the potential costs from mining outweighed any possible benefit.

“We do not have the authority to comment on PBNU’s response regarding the mining concession,” Izzuddin told Mongabay, referring to the NU national board. “But in Trenggalek, our commitment that the gold mines do not operate remains unchanged.”

Azam said that NU should position itself as an advocate for communities affected by mining, not the executor of the environmental change damaging communities.

“As an NU person,” Asman said, “honestly, it makes me really sad.”

Banner image: A coal mine in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Image by Cassidy K. / ILO via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

This story was reported by Mongabay’s Indonesia team and first published here on our Indonesian site on June 10, 2024.

Fish are starting to drown as warmer seas hold less oxygen

Warmer sea water holds less oxygen, so fish are starting to die. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By bne IntelliNews September 23, 2024

Higher temperatures mean the oceans can hold less oxygen and fish are literally starting to drown. Last summer, more than 100 miles (161 km) of Florida’s coast around Tampa Bay became an oxygen-depleted zone littered with fish along the nearby shoreline. This summer the same thing happened in Greece, where thousands of dead fish were washed up on the shore after the water they live in ran out of oxygen.

Ocean deoxygenation is now affecting about 20% of the world's oceans, primarily in the North Pacific, according to scientists, bring with it a triple threat of acid, heat and deoxygenation.

Research indicates that the volume of oxygen-depleted "dead zones" has quadrupled since the 1960s, with areas completely devoid of oxygen becoming more common. For example, midwaters off the coast of Central California have seen 40% oxygen depletion in the last few decades.​

“Much of the conversation around our climate crisis highlights the emission of greenhouse gases [GHGs] and their effect on warming, precipitation, sea-level rise and ocean acidification. We hear little about the effect of climate change on oxygen levels, particularly in oceans and lakes. But water without adequate oxygen cannot support life, and for the three billion people who depend on coastal fisheries for income, declining ocean oxygen levels are catastrophic,” Nathalie Goodkin, a chemical oceanographer and an associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History, said in a recent opinion piece for Scientific American.

Global warming contributes to a reduction of oxygen in the oceans through a combination of rising sea temperatures, altered circulation patterns and increased nutrient runoff, which leads to a process called "ocean deoxygenation."

Warmer water holds less oxygen. As the ocean absorbs heat due to global warming, the surface waters, where most fish live, warm and hold less oxygen. This year has seen record high sea temperatures. August 2024 recorded an average global sea surface temperatures of 20.91°C, the second highest for that month on record, just slightly below August 2023 levels.

The stratification of ocean layers has also changed. When surface waters warm up, they become less dense, creating a stronger separation between surface and deeper water layers. This prevents oxygen-rich surface water sinking and so also asphyxiates fish in the deeper layers as well.

Climate change has also intensified rainfall and agricultural runoff, which carries more nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into the seas. This excess nutrient input leads to "eutrophication," where oxygen-eating algae bloom in large quantities leading to "dead zones" in the ocean where oxygen levels are so low that fish cannot survive.

“As ocean and atmospheric scientists focused on climate, we believe that oceanic oxygen levels are the next big casualty of global warming,” says Goodkin. “To stop the situation from worsening, we need to expand our attention to include the perilous state of oceanic oxygen levels – the life-support system of our planet.”

Oceans play a dominant role in the planets heat system. They take up just under 90% of the excess heat created by climate change during the Anthropocene, the period when human activity dominates the influence on the climate. Bodies of water can also help reduce emissions as they also absorb CO₂ and oxygen but only up to a limit. Another looming problem to affect the oceans is the potential collapse of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) that could come in the next few decades and will result in a new ice age in Northern Europe.

Large swathes of the oceans have already lost 10% to 40% of their oxygen, says Goodkin, and that loss is expected to accelerate as climate change progresses. This escalating problems for marine life are running in parallel with the accelerating sixth extinction event happening on land, as bne IntelliNews recently reported.

And these twin mechanisms are starting to compound each other in a positive feedback loop. Yet Goodkin says scientists still know little about how the maritime systems work, despite years of research.

 

France deploys anti-riot police to Martinique amid protests over rising living costs

Drew Meetze | U. Ottawa Faculty of Law, CA

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024 

The French government deployed anti-riot police, the Republican Security Companies (CRS) 8, to Martinique on Sunday in response to ongoing protests against the rising cost of living on the French Caribbean island.

The deployment marks the first time CRS units have been sent to Martinique since their ban in December 1959, following violent protests in Fort-de-France that drew widespread criticism for heavy-handed police intervention. CRS 8, established in July 2021, is designed “to be involved in urban violence and high-intensity law enforcement operations,” according to France’s Ministry of the Interior.

Since early September 2024, demonstrations have begun around the island over the rising cost of living. According to the French statistical agency, l’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, consumer prices in Martinique were approximately 14 percent higher than in mainland France as of 2022. The discontent has spilled over to nearby Guadeloupe, where demonstrations have also been reported.

In response, the French government imposed an evening curfew on Thursday represented by the Prefect of Martinique. The government’s statement also documented that 27 people had been arrested since the demonstrations began. Authorities have also set up several roadblocks to manage movement around protests sites, while several gunshots were fired at police during the unrest.

The prefect issued an order banning demonstrations in Fort-de-France, Le Lamentin, Ducos and Le Robert beginning on Friday until Monday. In a press release on Saturday, the prefect promised to continue addressing the island’s cost of living crisis while also asking for peace amongst the community.

On Monday, the prefect announceed a “major security operation was deployed on Saturday and Sunday,” which likely referenced to the deployment of CRS 8 in addition to an effort to use “internal security forces.” A press conference is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 AM to provide further updates on the situation.