RESOURCE EXTRACTION IN WEST PAPUA

One of the last great frontier wildernesses, West Papua is also the backdrop to one of the most severely underreported conflicts in recent history.

 
West Papua is home to one of the most spectacular and abundant ecosystems on earth with a bewildering variety of endemic species. The Raja Ampat archipelago has recently been recognised as the most biodiverse stretch of ocean on the planet.
West Papua has 'special autonomy' which, designed to placate the independence movement, has created a confusing overlap of authorities. Resource extraction permits and re now issued by both Jakarta as well as provincial government.
Due to their remoteness, nickel mines in Raja Ampat operate with very little environmental impact assessment. Waste is washed out to sea, suffocating coral reefs and decimating the fishing grounds of local communities.
At Go village in Maya Libit bay, even the children's relentless cheer has been choked by sediment from deforestation and mining activities. Villages affected also face serious health issues after eating the contaminated fish.
Villagers from Salpele village cook fish on an open fire. A nickel mine across the water will destroy their fishing grounds when it opens. Some residents will be employed by the mine and welcome the move. Others strongly oppose it.
Traditionally the people of Raja Ampat have survived from artisanal fishing. Now communities are divided and conflict is arising over whether or not to fight the mines and protect their waters.
A boat with illegal building materials prepares to leave Sorong harbour for PetroChina, one of the largest Gas and Oil companies. To exploit West Papua's natural resources, the government employed thousands of immigrants from surrounding islands.
Guru Jemat Steven Su, a Mooi elder, tells me his community sold land for $5 per hectare. Timber and palm oil companies, often supported by Indonesian military, trick indigenous people, and make them slaves on their own land. West Papua, Indonesia.
This Mooi community in the Sorong regency of West Papua sold their land to a palm oil company and have been left in extreme poverty without access to the forest which once supported them.
There is an alternative government in West Papua called the Traditional People's Council, with their own police force, citing human rights and environmental issues as their top priority. Here a member of the traditional police is patrolling by river.
Just twenty minutes from Kawe mine is a pearl farm. The Pearl farm produces 80 million dollars worth of pearls a year proving that Raja Ampat's unique ecosystem can be used to turn a significant profit without being decimated in the process.
Members of the Free Papuan Movement in Klamono village smoke cigarettes under a painting of Jesus wearing a West Papuan Morning Star flag.
 
 

West Papua is one of the last great frontier wildernesses. Over 250 distinct indigenous communities live amongst spectacular rainforests, mountains and coral ecosystems. But all is not well on the world’s second largest island – which now serves as a backdrop to one of the most severely underreported conflicts in recent history.

Officially a ‘special’ autonomous region of Indonesia, indigenous Papuans have been viciously fighting for independence since the 1960s, whilst big business and a ruthless Indonesian military seek to bolster their global economic standing by exploiting the territory’s immense reserve of natural resources.

Foreign journalists have been controversially banned from West Papua since 2004, so reporting on human rights abuses and environmental destruction has been severely limited. Yet Amnesty International estimates that between 100,000 and 400,000 Papuans have been killed since Indonesia took control of the territory in 1969. West Papua remains a militarized zone, allowing the Indonesian army to reap enormous profits from lucrative agreements with timber, mining and palm oil companies, while ruthlessly suppressing local people. The resources flow out to markets in the US & Canada, Europe, Australia and China.

I traveled undercover to West Papua in June this year where I found desperately poor communities deep in the forest that had been coerced into selling their land for as little as US$1 a hectare. I flew over islands scarred by nickel mines, in what is the richest marine environment on the planet. I saw sediment flowing freely into coral reefs and visited communities in conflict, as nickel mining interests battle for concessions. I also witnessed firsthand the outcomes of migration, from prostitution in the industrial port of Sorong to evidence of an alarming AIDS epidemic.