Disinformation about the Down-Streaming of Nickel Mining

October 1, 2025 | 10:08 am

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Social media is inundated with misleading content about the down-streaming of nickel mines. This disinformation is covering up environmental damage.

DESPITE claims of success with down-streaming of nickel having proved problematic here and there, the administration of Prabowo Subianto is continuing the policy inherited from the previous administration under Joko Widodo. It is as if the government is closing its eyes and ears to the damage: thousands of hectares of forests have disappeared, biodiversity has been wiped out, indigenous people have been displaced, and there has been repeated flooding.

The government, and also the mining companies, are busy covering up the poor track record of downstreaming with the narrative of “economic success.” The Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) is a prominent example. In the last three years, the number of social media posts about IWIP has risen sharply. Positive content dominates them, leaving criticism far behind.

On TikTok for example, of 1,632 posts analyzed by Tempo, 96 percent extol the privileges of working at the mine: high salaries, work opportunities for women, and promises of a prosperous future. Meanwhile, serious issues such as workplace accidents, floods, and social conflicts are few and far between. The same is true for YouTube, where 95 percent of 1,345 postings portray a positive image, such as huge infrastructure, work opportunities, and good employee salaries.

A social media account thought to be affiliated with IWIP, Iwip Official, is also full of “green” content. The account portrays company activities, including the endeavor to construct an environmentally friendly image through the planting of mangrove trees and marking World Environment Day.

It is difficult not to conclude that this social media campaign is disinformation. Public support and positive content are made to look as if they have emerged naturally, despite the fact that this positive narrative is the result of coordinated manipulation. The company is strongly suspected of recruiting content creators and employees with large numbers of followers to flood social media with covert promotions.

What is more, the claims of environmental friendliness are in sharp contrast to the findings of a number of independent institutions. According to Climate Rights International and the AI Climate Initiative from the University of California, for example, 5,331 hectares of forests have been cleared as a result of the IWIP industrial park. Forest Watch Indonesia has found a correlation between deforestation and 19 occurrences of flooding in Weda over the last five years.

But instead of investigating this, the Prabowo administration has expanded down-streaming to other mining commodities with Rp618 trillion of investment. This is despite the fact that environmental and social damage far exceeds the benefits to the balance of payments. The country could even lose ‌ revenues of around Rp32 trillion per year because fiscal incentives exempt smelters from corporate income tax, export duties and customs tariffs.

The grand narrative that down-streaming will turn Indonesia into a global producer of batteries for electric vehicles is also uncertain. The battery project at East Halmahera, for example, is still in limbo. The primary investor from South Korea has withdrawn. The reality is that in the last six years, the majority of smelters have only produced ferronickel and nickel pig iron—partly processed products that are exported to China where they are used to produce stainless steel. Meanwhile, global industry has already switched to lithium ferro phosphate batteries, which are safer and longer lasting.

We should not allow ourselves to be easily convinced that down-streaming mines will bring a “green and prosperous” future. Continuing the downstream policy without any corrections will lead to this nation losing forests, biodiversity and more just economic opportunities.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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