A nickel mining project, a material vital for electric car batteries, threatens indigenous territories in Indonesia. Questions over Tesla.
It is a serious accusation. Tesla, along with other German and French companies, may be involved in a huge project in Indonesia to extract nickel linked to the production of electric batteries. The NGO Survival International has reported that a large-scale mining project is threatening the existence of a unique uncontacted people.
The nickel extracted here is used for the batteries of electric vehicles. What remains to be established is whether the nickel supplied to Tesla comes from this mine. The project criticised by the NGO is, in fact, part of a broader Indonesian government programme to become a major producer of electric car batteries. A plan in which international companies such as Tesla are already investing billions of dollars.
Nickel extraction on the island of Halmahera is set to destroy vast forest areas inhabited by approximately 300–500 uncontacted members of the hongana manyawa people, according to the NGO. "If mining activities were to continue as planned," writes Survival, the indigenous people "will not survive."
The hongana manyawa — a name that in their language means "people of the forest" — are one of Indonesia's last nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples. But as Survival explains, this people now risks witnessing the devastation of their territory in the name of sustainability.
These mining activities are illegal under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, since uncontacted peoples have not given "free, prior and informed consent" to the exploitation of their land by an outside party. This is a legally necessary requirement for all commercial activities on indigenous lands.
Weda Bay Nickel (Wbn), a company co-owned by France's Eramet, has been investing on the island for at least two decades and, as Survival further explains, has been extracting minerals in territories belonging to the hongana manyawa since 2019, "despite being aware of this overlap." Since then, vast areas of forest that the indigenous people consider their home have already been destroyed.
And the company shows no sign of stopping: its intention is to increase the pace of extraction and to continue operations for 50 years. German chemical giant Basf is also reportedly planning to collaborate with Eramet to build a nickel and cobalt refinery.
"It is shocking that electric car companies sell customers the promise of ethical consumption while their supply chain destroys an uncontacted people," said Survival International director general Caroline Pearce.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo and Tesla founder Elon Musk have long been engaged in a commercial relationship: according to Indonesian sources, a deal worth 5 billion dollars for the purchase of nickel supplies was reportedly signed a year ago, in 2022.
Furthermore, after blocking nickel exports to attract investors, Indonesia has offered a series of incentives directly to Tesla for the electric car company to invest in the Asian country, including mining concessions, tax breaks and an electric car subsidy scheme.
Tesla, which has not responded either to the matter of the deal with Indonesia or to Survival's accusations, is indeed seeking an additional production hub, as reported by news agency Reuters. The company currently produces electric vehicles at four sites: California, Shanghai, Texas and Berlin. Analysts estimate that Tesla would need to build another seven or eight "gigafactories" to reach Musk's goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles by 2030. Indonesia is not, in fact, the only country seeking to capture the entrepreneur's attention: Mexico, Canada and South Korea are also on the list.
