{"id":63242,"date":"2024-04-11T10:04:37","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T01:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/apr\/11\/cheap-coal-cheap-workers-chinese-money-indonesias-nickel-success-comes-at-a-price"},"modified":"2024-04-11T10:04:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T01:04:37","slug":"cheap-coal-cheap-workers-chinese-money-indonesias-nickel-success-comes-at-a-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=63242","title":{"rendered":"Cheap coal, cheap workers, Chinese money: Indonesia\u2019s nickel success comes at a price"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jakarta hopes the industry is the ticket to becoming a developed nation. But there are fears the toll on the environment \u2013 and people\u2019s lives \u2013 will be too high<\/p>\n<p>Standing chest-deep in the Molucca Sea, just outside the billowing smokestacks of the world\u2019s largest nickel industry, Upin adjusts his mask and dives. Members of his people, the Bajau, have been known to stay underwater for more than 10 minutes but Upin resurfaces shortly. He hauls a rugged disc of metal over the side of his dugout canoe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince the factories arrived, there has barely been any fish to catch,\u201d he says and grimaces towards the opaque water.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Above:<\/strong> Upin steers his boat with wife Jenni and son Riski past nickel factories in Morowali. Since the factories opened, their drinking water has been polluted and fish is no longer abundant. \u2013 <em>All images by Per Elinder Liljas<\/em><br \/><strong>Below:<\/strong> Open-cut nickel mining leads to erosion and sediment sludge in local waterways<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed\">Sign up for Guardian Australia\u2019s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/apr\/11\/cheap-coal-cheap-workers-chinese-money-indonesias-nickel-success-comes-at-a-price\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jakarta hopes the industry is the ticket to becoming a developed nation. But there are fears the toll on the environment \u2013 and people\u2019s lives \u2013 will be too highStanding chest-deep in the Molucca Sea, just outside the billowing smokestacks of the world\u2019&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,65,156,730,466],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-environment","category-indonesia","category-mining","category-pollution"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63243,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63242\/revisions\/63243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}