Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Perrine Fournier is a trade and forests campaigner at the forests and rights NGO Fern

The view from the highest vantage point in Kabaena island is awe-inspiring. Mountain peaks coated with thin clouds rise over a thick blanket of vegetation.

But the natural beauty of this tropical island in Indonesia’s Southeast Sulawesi province, belies the human and environmental damage that’s unfolding below – and which is set to intensify.

This harm is driven by mining for the vast reserves of nickel which lie beneath the island’s surface. Nickel is defined as a ‘critical mineral’, as it’s an essential component of electric vehicle (EV) batteries. As countries shift away from fossil fuels, global demand for nickel has surged.

Mining companies have been granted access to vast swathes of Kabaena, with licenses awarded to mine around three-quarters of the island’s territory. Only a few mining concessions are currently operating – but their impact is already being felt deeply.

“Because of the mining, all we see is mud. Flooding,” says Sahrul, a local resident. Sahrul is the founder of Sagori, a group resisting mining on the island, and he says that mining has created social conflicts between its supporters and opponents: “Relationships within families are breaking because of the mining.”

Sahrul is the founder of Sagori, a group resisting mining on Kabaena

Amal, a 25-year-old tourism student, echoes these complaints. He says that while mining has brought economic benefits, it’s also brought environmental ruin. “The mining company broke our forests. They made us lose our river. Water is the main point of life, we get it from nature. But we’re losing it.”

Threatening the Sea Nomads

Reports corroborate these claims.

Indonesia is the world’s biggest nickel producer, and has the largest reserves on earth, most of which are in Sulawesi and Halmahera islands. In the so-called ‘nickel provinces’ of these islands, including Kabaena in Southeast Sulawesi, mining’s damage has manifested itself in different forms.

Last month, Satya Bumi, a local NGO working to protect Indonesia’s forests and ecosystems, published a report comprehensively documenting it.

They detailed the sea and river pollution contaminating once pristine waters, reducing fish stocks, causing children skin infections, and threatening the livelihoods of local people, particularly the Indigenous Bajau community – known as Sea Nomads for their exceptional diving ability.

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

Then there’s deforestation: mining for nickel is now the biggest cause of deforestation in the nickel mining provinces. Out of the 920,000 hectares (ha) of nickel mining concessions in Indonesia, about two-thirds are under forest cover.

So who’s driving this demand and what should be done to mitigate the damage it’s causing?

Energy transition

China, the world leader in producing and exporting EV batteries, has poured investments into Indonesia’s nickel industry since the latter banned raw nickel-ore exports in 2020, to try to boost investments in ‘downstream processing’ (such as refining and battery manufacturing).

In the three years to 2023, Indonesia signed deals worth more than US$15 billion for battery materials with major corporations including Hyundai, LG and Foxconn, Reuters reported last year. So far, however, European investment in Indonesia’s nickel industry has not materialised.

In July, the German chemical manufacturer BASF and the French mining multinational Eramet, pulled out of a huge nickel and cobalt refinery in Indonesia because of its impact on one of the last Indigenous tribes still living in voluntary isolation.

But Satya Bumi’s supply chain mapping of Kabaena’s nickel, provides evidence that it’s entering global supply chains, including to the EU.

What’s more, the EU is currently negotiating a major free trade agreement with Indonesia, and focusing much attention on securing the critical raw materials Europe needs for the green energy and digital transitions – for instance through its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which entered into force earlier this year.

The EU is therefore keen to strike a deal with Indonesia, believing it will support European investors to secure access to the raw materials that underpin its green investment strategies.

Children’s future

When this happens, EU investment must be built on a partnership with Indonesia which incentivises Indonesia to eliminate the environmental and social damage the industry is wreaking in Kabaena and elsewhere.

Indonesian civil society groups are already working to end this destruction, including by calling for nickel mining No Go Zones to limit forest and biodiversity loss. The Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara has reported that forests are disappearing twice as fast in areas surrounding nickel-processing plants than elsewhere.

It’s also essential that Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live in areas coveted by mining companies have their fundamental human right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) respected.

Tamrin, a 34-year-old coffee shop owner and father of five in Kabaena, has an unequivocal message for those oblivious to the human and environmental cost of their EV batteries: “If you want to buy an electric car, sure. It may be comfortable for you. But consider the places that are impacted by the mineral extraction… I hope to God my children have a future on this Island.”

The post Nickel mining for electric vehicles is destroying lives in Indonesia appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nickel mining for electric vehicles is destroying lives in Indonesia

Climate Change

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Published

9 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Climate Change

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Published

14 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.

ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.

Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.

“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”

The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]

ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]

Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.

“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”

Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.

-ENDS-

Images available in Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.

[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee

[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.

[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.

Media contact:

Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Climate Change

Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump

Published

14 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.

By Liza Gross

In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.