The O’Hongana Manyawa or Tobelo Dalam people have lived in Halmahera’s forests for centuries, yet authorities still misunderstand, criminalize, and push them out of their ancestral homes. This persecution has intensified as “nickel fever” sweeps the island. Why is Tesla now paying closer attention to their plight?
Police woke and arrested Bokum and Nuhu at 2 a.m.
That night, March 1, 2015, the two men stayed at Oti Maliong’s home in Woejerana Village, Central Halmahera. Maliong’s house wasn’t far from the Ake Jira forest, where Bokum and Nuhu lived.
The authorities arrested them for allegedly killing two residents of Waci Village, East Halmahera, on July 8, 2014.
The victims were Masud Watoa and his seven-year-old son, Marlan.
When the killings happened, Masud, Marlan, and four companions had spent five days searching for agarwood in the Waci forest, according to an investigative report by the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) published in October 2023.
At around 12:30 p.m., the group encountered six individuals they believed were Tobelo Dalam community members. Two of these people, as explained in the KontraS report, carried arrows and machetes.
The hunters immediately ran to the Waci river and tried to cross it.
Young Marlan stumbled and fell before they could reach safety. Two of the six strangers hacked the boy repeatedly until he died, the witnesses said.
It was too late when Masud realized his son had fallen behind. He ran back toward the attackers, grabbed his son’s body, and tried to escape.
But three arrows struck Masud in the chest, right leg, and right buttock. He fell. Witnesses said two attackers took turns hacking him until he died. Then they fled.
Four agarwood harvesters managed to escape unharmed, including Abutalib Bakir, who immediately reported the attack to the East Halmahera Police.
Police investigated the murders for six months without finding any trace of the perpetrators. But pressure mounted from the victims’ family and Waci Village residents, who demanded justice.
News of the tragedy spread across social media. Photos of Tobelo Dalam people circulated widely, including those scholars had taken for research. The faces of Bokum and Nuhu appeared in some of these photos.
Police matched faces in the photos to Bakir’s description of the perpetrators: men with thick mustaches and beards, pronounced sideburns, hair tied back and unkempt.
Officers showed Bakir several photos of Bokum and Nuhu. He identified them as the killers. The police then arrested them.
“The survivor provided the murderers’ physical features that were very general [throughout the Tobelo Dalam community],” KontraS stated in its report.
“The legal counsel found it suspicious that the victim could immediately recognize Bokum and Nuhu from police photos, while four other attackers remained unidentified.”
KontraS found several other problems.
Witnesses said they actually saw both men in and around the Ake Jira forest during the days before and after the Waci forest murder.
The Ake Jira forest lies dozens of kilometers from the Waci forest. And so, KontraS and the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) argued it was impossible for Bokum and Nuhu to have been at the Waci site when the killings occurred.
Munadi Kilkoda, the head of AMAN North Maluku in 2015, said Bokum and Nuhu would have had to walk through the territories of several other Tobelo Dalam groups to reach the Waci forest.
But the Tobelo Dalam people, also known as O’Hongana Manyawa or “people who live in the forest”, rarely enter other groups’ forest territories without permission.
Syaiful Madjid, a researcher on the Tobelo Dalam and an expert witness at the trial, said these indigenous people kill only when someone breaks their social rules.
“Two main reasons drive them to kill: if other indigenous community groups enter their forest territory, and if someone steals a wife from another indigenous community,” KontraS stated, quoting an interview with Madjid.
Even when the Tobelo Dalam people kill, Madjid said, they typically tend the body until someone comes to retrieve it—a sharp contrast to the Waci forest case, where the victims were hacked to death and left behind.
AMAN and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) highlighted these problems and urged the authorities to release Bokum and Nuhu from detention, but to no avail.
“The arrests followed proper procedures,” said Hendri Badar, then head of public relations for the North Maluku Police, around a week after the arrests.
The court ultimately found Bokum and Nuhu guilty and sentenced them to 15 years in prison.
Five years into their imprisonment, Nuhu died from untreated back pain. Meanwhile, authorities released Bokum on Jan. 24, 2022, after he had served roughly half his sentence.
Accompanied by Madjid, the researcher, Bokum returned to the Ake Jira forest, searching for the family he had left behind seven years earlier.
Bokum then discovered that nickel mining companies had consumed parts of his ancestral forest territory as “nickel fever” had swept Halmahera.
Halmahera’s nickel chronicle
In October 1996, a 30-year-old Australian geologist arrived by helicopter on Halmahera, altering the island’s course forever.
Strand Minerals, a subsidiary of Canada-based Weda Bay Minerals, had dispatched the geologist to assess the island’s nickel potential.
The work demanded extraordinary efforts. He was often forced to navigate mountainous terrain without established trails, hauling equipment and supplies through unexplored territory.
Dense forest blanketed the region, harboring diverse species of snakes, spiders, and birds—alongside the Tobelo Dalam people, who had roamed these lands nomadically for centuries.
“We are at the edge of the world here, on the border of Asia, with one foot in Melanesia,” said Eramet SA, a French mining company that now holds a 43% interest in Strand Minerals, in an article titled “The success story of Weda Bay Nickel“.
In the article, Eramet chronicled Strand Minerals’ discovery of what they called “world-class nickel deposits” across Halmahera.
“Starting in the 16th century, and for 200 years thereafter, the region highly attracted the attention of European powers for its spices, which sold for more money than gold, before it fell into obscurity,” Eramet wrote about Halmahera. “The upcoming exploration phase will put the spotlight back on this corner of the world.”
Initial exploration validated their optimism. Several areas across Halmahera revealed abundant nickel resources: 90 million dry tons of indicated and recorded deposits.
This discovery led to the formation of PT Weda Bay Nickel (WBN), with Strand Minerals controlling 90% of shares and state-owned PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) holding the remaining 10%.
WBN signed a 7th Generation Contract of Work with the Indonesian government in early 1998, securing a 30-year permit to extract nickel from 120,500 hectares of land spanning Central and East Halmahera.
Subsequent negotiations between WBN and the government reduced the company’s concession to 45,065 hectares. Yet it remains Halmahera’s largest nickel concession and Indonesia’s second-largest.
By January 2019, WBN’s Halmahera concession contained 634.9 million tons of nickel ore resources.
Halmahera Island, located within North Maluku Province in the broader Maluku Islands region, is indeed one of Indonesia’s primary sources of nickel.
Official data showed that Indonesia had 3.6 billion tons of measured nickel ore resources and 1.64 billion tons of proven reserves as of 2022.
Sulawesi Island contributed 56.8% of these proven reserves, while the Maluku Islands provided 42.4%.
As of 2023, there were 373 nickel mining concessions with “clean and clear” or CnC status issued by the government, covering a total area of 960,117 hectares.
The provinces of South, Southeast, and Central Sulawesi host 309 of these concessions, spanning 691,930 hectares. North Maluku has 59 concessions and Maluku has one, together covering 231,486 hectares.
WBN signed its Contract of Work in early 1998, but nickel mining in North Maluku, particularly on Halmahera Island, only accelerated in the past five years. Political instability, shifting government policies, and plummeting global nickel prices delayed the mining boom for decades.
In May 1998, just months after WBN and the government signed the contract, authoritarian President Suharto resigned. B.J. Habibie assumed the presidency until October 1999.
Habibie enacted Law No. 41 of 1999 on Forestry, which banned open-pit mining in protected forest areas.
The law threatened WBN’s operations because its concession included the 35,155-hectare Ake Kobe protected forest. The company halted exploration in 2001.
WBN joined 11 other affected mining companies in lobbying the government for an exemption, arguing their permits predated the law.
The government agreed. WBN then resumed operations in Central and East Halmahera’s forests, including in protected areas that the Sawai and Tobelo Dalam indigenous communities had inhabited for generations.
In May 2006, French company Eramet acquired Weda Bay Minerals, gaining complete control of Strand Minerals, which owned 90% of WBN.
WBN then conducted its initial feasibility study from September 2007 to March 2009 and obtained environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) documents in June 2009.
The Non-Judicial Human Rights Redress Mechanisms Project, however, found it likely that procedural flaws existed in the AMDAL process.
WBN invited representatives of the Sawai indigenous community to a public consultation, but the company provided them with hundreds of pages of documents to review just moments before the meeting began.
“Village representatives didn’t know the mining concession would block residents’ access to their agricultural land in the protected forest area,” according to a September 2013 report by the Non-Judicial Human Rights Redress Mechanisms Project.
“[One] village head said he would never have approved the AMDAL if he had known residents would lose land they had cultivated for generations.”
After obtaining AMDAL approval, WBN negotiated with the Sawai community to acquire their land. Talks stalled for years over compensation values.
WBN offered Rp7,000–8,000 (about 43–49 US cents) per square meter, far below the Rp50,000 per square meter the community asked for.
Regarding the Tobelo Dalam ancestral lands within the concession area, the company never sought consent from the people.
WBN stated it was unsure how to negotiate effectively with the community.
“This remains a serious and urgent social responsibility issue for Weda Bay Nickel,” according to the report.
Before the land dispute was resolved, another problem hit. Europe’s economic crisis struck. Falling global nickel prices from oversupply caused major losses for mining companies in 2013, including Eramet.
Eramet and its Japanese partners—Mitsubishi Corp. and Pacific Metals, which had invested in Strand Minerals in 2009 and 2011 respectively—postponed investment in the WBN’s Halmahera project.
The Indonesian government then banned nickel ore exports in early 2014 to promote domestic mineral processing.
All these uncertainties prompted Mitsubishi Corp. and Pacific Metals to sell their Strand Minerals shares back to Eramet in April 2016.
The tide turned for Eramet in 2017. Indonesia eased export curbs on certain nickel ore grades provided that miners built new smelters domestically.
That same year, Eramet partnered with Tsingshan Holding Group, a Chinese stainless-steel giant that had entered the electric vehicle battery industry, to revive the WBN project.
Tsingshan acquired 57% of Strand Minerals, becoming WBN’s majority shareholder. Eramet retained 43%.
In August 2018, after securing nickel ore supply from WBN’s mine, Tsingshan and several Chinese partners began building the Weda Bay Industrial Estate in Central Halmahera.
The estate, managed by PT Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP), houses smelters that process nickel ore into components for electric vehicle batteries.
In October 2019, WBN started mining, two years after Tsingshan took control.
The Weda Bay Industrial Estate began operations in April 2020 and had expanded to 5,000 hectares by 2022.
Since Tsingshan began operations on Halmahera, the local nickel mining and processing business has grown rapidly in tandem with the rising adoption of electric vehicles, aimed at reducing carbon emissions and combating global warming.
But this supposedly “green industry” destroyed Halmahera’s protected forests—home to various species of snakes, spiders, birds and the Tobelo Dalam people.
The story of the ‘defeated people’
Faris Bobero couldn’t understand why his surname was so rare.
He grew up in Tobelo, a district on North Halmahera’s coast, where he spent most of his elementary years and later graduated from high school.
Throughout that time, Faris said, only three heads of household in Tobelo used the Bobero surname: his father, his married older brother, and his uncle.
“I wondered why so few people shared this surname,” Faris said.
He kept this curiosity to himself until a strange incident in 2006 motivated him to investigate further.
Just before high school graduation, Faris joined a school trip to several areas in East Halmahera.
During the sea journey, he fell asleep and missed when his classmates switched boats to visit a village. They didn’t notice him sleeping either, leaving him behind.
Faris woke up on the boat without his friends and had to return to his village, following the usual route of the boat.
Meanwhile, when his friends reached the village, “three tall men” greeted them and asked, “Where’s Faris?”
These men claimed to be Faris’s relatives—members of the Bobero clan.
His classmates returned with a message: “Your relatives were asking about you.”
Faris was baffled.
Which relatives? And even if they were family, how did they know about his planned visit?
When Faris asked his father about other Bobero family members, the answer surprised him.
Many Boberos once existed, his father told him, particularly in Faris’ grandfather’s generation. But most had dropped their surnames to escape the belasting—the Dutch colonial tax that once burdened their lives.
This revelation sparked Faris’s quest to understand his origins.
In 2006, Faris enrolled in sociology at Muhammadiyah University of North Maluku, where he joined the Institute for Circular Current Studies (PILAS). The organization later partnered with Sokola Rimba to establish literacy programs for the Tobelo Dalam people.
The literacy program transformed Faris’ life. In 2008, he lived with the Tobelo Dalam for nearly three months in the forest of Tidore Islands area that fell within Halmahera.
Five days in, Faris wandered into one of the Tobelo Dalam’s sacred places. When he returned unharmed, his hosts were shocked.
“Outsiders usually disappear or fall ill when they visit that place,” they told Faris.
Five more days passed, and Faris remained healthy.
Their amazement grew, so they asked Faris, “Teacher, who are you?”
When Faris shared his full name, the community members were shocked.
“You’re not an outsider. This is your territory,” they told Faris.
Further investigation revealed that Bobero descended from Tobelo Boeng, a subethnic group of the Tobelo people. This discovery fueled Faris’ passion for studying Tobelo life—a passion he continued as a journalist, researcher, and activist long after graduation.
Yet the deeper he delved into their history, the more he understood that the Tobelo story was one of repeated defeat.
Historical and ethnographic records confirm the Tobelo as the original inhabitants of Halmahera Island’s northern and central peninsulas.
For centuries, they have endured waves of turmoil that uprooted their culture and displaced them from their ancestral lands, said Roem Topatimasang, a researcher.
In the 19th century, the Sultan of Ternate imposed his traditional government structure on the Tobelo people. This new system transformed the society of Tobelo and redrew the boundaries of their hoana (settlements).
The sultan intended his system to block his archenemy, the Sultan of Tidore, from gaining influence over Tobelo.
Christianity brought another major transformation. When evangelist Hendrik Van Dijken arrived in Galela, Halmahera, in 1866, he launched a conversion campaign that eventually led to most Tobelo becoming Protestant Christians.
The Tobelo then abandoned their original worship rituals, including one of their most significant ceremonies—the elaborate death feast that once defined their community. Protestant burial customs replaced this ancient tradition.
“The consequences were very clear,” according to Topatimasang in his 2016 book, The Defeated People: The Story of the Displacement of Indigenous Communities in the Maluku Islands.
“One of the most important and core foundations of the original Tobelo cosmological concept was drastically removed from Tobelo thinking and replaced with Western-Christian concepts.”
The 1960s brought another blow to the community’s way of life. The Indonesian government forced the Tobelo into resettlement programs, expecting them to abandon their nomadic forest life for permanent villages.
These programs grew from deep-rooted prejudice. Government officials viewed the forest-dwelling Tobelo as “isolated, backward, primitive, animist tribes” who needed to be “civilized, advanced, fostered, socialized and given religion”, Topatimasang wrote.
Topatimasang uses the term Tobelo Dalam for those who maintain forest life and traditional values, and Tobelo Luar for those who’ve settled in coastal and urban areas.
The Tobelo Dalam people, however, prefer calling themselves O’Hongana Manyawa, meaning “people who live in the forest” in the Tobelo language. And they refer to their settled relatives as O’Hoberera Manyawa.
Meanwhile, the government officials and Tobelo Luar often use two different terms for the Tobelo Dalam people: “culturally impoverished people” and “Togutil”. The latter carries connotations of “stupid”, “backwards”, and “left behind”.
“The term [Togutil] itself is not used at all by Tobelo Dalam people to refer to themselves,” Topatimasang wrote.
“Only newcomers and Tobelo Luar people use it, also without being able to explain what it means and its origins and who exactly is included in the category of Togutil people,” Topatimasang wrote.
Government officials struggled to convince the Tobelo Dalam people to join resettlement programs.
In 1978, for example, the Indonesian Social Department recruited Madiki, a Tobelo Luar man, to live in the Dodaga forest in East Halmahera for months. His mission was to persuade the local Tobelo Dalam people to relocate.
The local O’Hongana Manyawa accepted Madiki’s presence because his ancestors originated from the Dodaga forest, according to Faris in his book, The People of Halmahera: A Note from the Field (2021).
The problem was, when the Tobelo Dalam finally emerged from the forest, they struggled with the government-provided houses. Many contracted diarrhea and vomiting, and some died—likely because they lacked immunity to diseases in the outside world.
“When the indigenous people fell ill, they grew suspicious toward the Dodaga villagers,” Faris said. “They felt threatened. So, in 1979-1980, many returned to the forest to continue their way of life as it used to be.”
Despite these setbacks, the government persisted, continuing efforts to resettle the Tobelo Dalam people.
By 1993, the Social Department of Maluku province (which then included North Maluku territory) had resettled 4,751 Tobelo Dalam people, comprising 1,104 families, outside the forest.
The government scattered these communities across 15 villages in what are now the North Halmahera and Central Halmahera regencies.
Economic interests drove this resettlement program from the start.
Topatimasang said the government used “conservation” and “rehabilitation” of forests as pretexts for resettling the Tobelo Dalam people while concealing its true agenda: exploitation of the natural resources in their abandoned customary territories.
In the 1970s and 1980s, according to Topatimasang’s records, forests across Halmahera were logged on a massive scale to feed raw log exports. When the government later tightened export rules, the exploitation continued as wood-processing plants sprang up across the area.
In the mid-1980s, surveyors identified mining potential, discovering coal, manganese and nickel deposits.
And now, large-scale exploitation is truly underway, with nickel as the main prize.
The result: deforestation has surged, and the Tobelo Dalam are being pushed out of their own homeland.
Deforestation in 51 nickel mining concessions across North Maluku reached at least 8,146 hectares by 2023, according to the environmental NGO Mighty Earth. The figure was calculated from the date each concession was issued or last amended.
Meanwhile, according to Survival International research, 18 nickel mining concessions overlap with the territory of the Tobelo Dalam or O’Hongana Manyawa in Halmahera’s forests, which fall within Tidore Islands, Central Halmahera, and East Halmahera.
The total overlapping area amounts to 90,819.91 hectares, 37.24% of which lies within the concession of PT Weda Bay Nickel (WBN).
Yet Survival International estimates that 300–500 O’Hongana Manyawa still live in forests across those three regions, actively avoiding contact with the outside world.
“Mining destroys their homes in the forest, and mine workers bring diseases [to the O’Hongana Manyawa] who have no immunity [to fight them],” Survival International said.
These pressures have forced some O’Hongana Manyawa to emerge from the forest, either to resist or seek help.
For example, in a video that went viral in October 2023, two O’Hongana Manyawa were trying to chase bulldozer operators away from a river.
In another video from June 2024, three O’Hongana Manyawa approached a WBN exploration camp to ask for food.
Caroline Pearce, the director of Survival International, called these videos “concrete proof” that nickel mining had penetrated deep into Halmahera’s forests and displaced the O’Hongana Manyawa from their living space.
The BBC repeatedly attempted to contact Tsingshan Holding Group, WBN’s majority shareholder, by phone and in writing, but received no response before publication.
However, Eramet SA, another WBN owner, dismissed public concerns following the release of the viral videos.
Eramet said the incident involving O’Hongana Manyawa chasing away workers occurred outside WBN’s concession.
Eramet described the second video as showing a “voluntary visit” that demonstrated the “friendly relationship” and “mutual trust” between the O’Hongana Manyawa and WBN’s employees.
“Eramet understands the concerns raised by NGOs regarding the potential impact of our operations through WBN on the communities of O’Hongana Manyawa,” Eramet said in a written statement to BBC News Indonesia.
“However, Eramet, which places community relations and corporate social responsibility at the heart of its development, is determined to play its part in favor of the fundamental rights of local communities and firmly rejects any allegation to the contrary.”
Eramet conducted studies on O’Hongana Manyawa’s life in 2013 and 2023.
The company has also conducted another study in 2024 to “design and deploy a complementary preservation plan where appropriate” for the O’Hongana Manyawa, particularly those living within WBN’s concession.
For Faris Bobero, the solution is clear: the O’Hongana Manyawa must have certainty about their future on Halmahera as nickel mining continues to erode their living space.
“The forest means more than economics [to the O’Hongana Manyawa],” Faris said. “The forest is their home, a home for their children and grandchildren.”
Tesla’s supply chain
A glimmer of hope for the O’Hongana Manyawa emerged after Tesla stated its position.
In its 2023 Impact Report, released in May 2024, the electric-car maker devoted two pages to a sub-section titled “Nickel: Reducing the Environmental and Social Impacts in Indonesia”.
Tesla does not invest directly in Indonesia. However, the company, majority-owned by billionaire Elon Musk, says 13% of the nickel it uses comes from Indonesia.
Indonesia’s nickel production is said to be “scaling significantly”, and its share of the global electric-vehicle supply chains is expected to surge.
“The transition to EVs will not be possible by only relying on non-Indonesian nickel,” Tesla wrote.
“Key risks in this context relate to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, water pollution, indigenous and community rights and worker health and safety in the country.”
Specifically, Tesla wrote, it has worked with the government, NGOs, and suppliers to explore establishing the “no-go zone for mining”, particularly to protect the rights of “uncontacted” indigenous communities.
Tesla also expects its suppliers to protect the right of indigenous people to grant or withhold free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).
This enables indigenous communities to approve or reject activities, projects, or policies that may affect their territories and traditional ways of life.
BBC News Indonesia repeatedly contacted Tesla for detailed explanations about its statements in the 2023 Impact Report but received no response before publication.
Tesla may have released statements about protecting indigenous rights to maintain its reputation as a top global electric vehicle manufacturer, said Putra Adhiguna, the executive director of the Jakarta-based Energy Shift Institute.
Such statements come amid mounting pressures from investors and intense criticism from NGOs like Survival International, which highlight the risks of displacing indigenous communities through nickel mining expansion.
“The ‘green energy’ transition requires a ‘green’ supply chain, especially when companies operate in developing countries,” Adhiguna said.
Tesla often serves as the benchmark for the global electric vehicle industry, and therefore, it must apply high standards in its operations, Adhiguna added.
“If Tesla can’t maintain high standards, other companies’ standards will also decline.”
Sophie Grig, a senior researcher at Survival International, welcomed Tesla’s statements about the no-go zone for mining to protect the rights of “uncontacted” communities, which she said refer to the O’Hongana Manyawa on Halmahera.
“The only uncontacted peoples in Indonesia who are impacted by nickel mining are the O’Hongana Manyawa,” Grig said.
“Therefore, it’s clear that they are referring to the O’Hongana Manyawa in their report.”
The understanding of “uncontacted” communities follows the UN Human Rights Council’s definition of isolated peoples, described as “indigenous peoples or subgroups thereof that do not maintain regular contact with the majority population and tend to shun any type of contact with outsiders”.
Hence, Grig said, even though some O’Hongana Manyawa members have interacted with outsiders, like mine workers, they remain legitimately called “uncontacted”.
“No-go zone” is a common concept implemented in several countries, including Brazil and Peru, to protect indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation, Grig said.
In practice, boundaries would mark the living spaces of these indigenous communities, which outsiders could not cross.
“Absolutely no industry or mining can take place there,” Grig said.
“Also, no other outsiders can go in and risk passing on the diseases to which the uncontacted people will have no immunity and will be wiped out.”
Further, Grig said, Tesla’s statement sends a “strong signal” to suppliers not to buy nickel ore from mining companies operating in indigenous territories or those that disregard their rights.
She said Tesla should go beyond signaling and adopt a formal policy refusing processed nickel from problematic mines.
In its 2023 Impact Report, Tesla names two “direct suppliers” with nickel-processing facilities in Indonesia: Huayou Holding Group and CNGR Advanced Material.
Before diving into Huayou and CNGR, it helps to understand how nickel ore is processed in Indonesia.
Traditionally, there have been two primary routes. First, high-grade ore is processed at high temperatures in rotary kiln-electric furnace (RKEF) smelters to produce ferronickel or nickel pig iron (NPI) for stainless steel.
Second, low-grade ore is processed in high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plants, which use sulfuric acid to separate nickel and cobalt, yielding mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) that can be refined into nickel sulfate for electric vehicle batteries.
Because of this clear split, it used to be relatively easy to tell which facilities fed the stainless-steel supply chain and which fed the battery supply chain.
But in March 2021, Tsingshan Holding Group shook the global nickel industry when it announced plans to convert NPI from RKEF smelters into high-grade nickel matte, which can then be processed into nickel sulfate.
The move blurred what had previously been a clear line between the two streams.
“Simply put, when people talked about batteries, you’d just follow where the HPAL plants were, and most HPAL plants were in Morowali [in Central Sulawesi],” said Adhiguna from the Energy Shift Institute.
“But now that technology exists to convert NPI into battery raw materials, it’s getting hard for us to trace [the supply chain]. That’s what makes it tricky.”
CNGR is also developing nickel ore processing facilities using technology called oxygen-enriched side-blown furnace (OESBF), which can produce high-grade nickel matte for battery materials.
Now, CNGR holds stakes in joint ventures that manage several OESBF smelter projects, RKEF lines, and nickel cathode plants on the islands of Sulawesi, Halmahera, and Kalimantan.
Specifically on Halmahera, CNGR holds stakes in two RKEF smelters in the Weda Bay Industrial Estate.
CNGR did not answer BBC News Indonesia‘s questions about the source of nickel ore supply for its two RKEF smelters.
However, PT Weda Bay Nickel (WBN)—whose mining concession reportedly overlaps much of the O’Hongana Manyawa’s territory—could be one of the suppliers.
Eramet SA, one of WBN’s owners, has said that all nickel ore mined by WBN would either be processed at the company’s own smelters or sold to various smelters in the Weda Bay Industrial Estate.
Asked about Survival International’s report highlighting rights violations and the loss of living space for the O’Hongana Manyawa, CNGR Indonesia’s public relations manager Franciscus Manurung said his company is dedicated to “respecting and safeguarding” the rights of indigenous peoples.
Discussions about the no-go zone are an “important step” to ensure the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights and territories, Manurung said.
“We believe that collaborative efforts and ongoing dialogue are essential to achieving sustainable and ethical development in the mining sector,” he added.
Meanwhile, Huayou now holds stakes in three HPAL plant projects on Sulawesi.
The company also has stakes in two HPAL plants, two RKEF smelters, and one nickel sulfate plant in the Weda Bay Industrial Estate on Halmahera.
Additionally, Huayou is acquiring a majority stake in PT Andalan Metal Industry, which owns another RKEF smelter in the industrial park.
All these nickel processing and refining facilities are operated specifically to produce raw materials for electric vehicle batteries, said Stevanus, director of external affairs for Huayou Indonesia.
WBN, he added, supplies most of the nickel ore needed for Huayou smelters in the Weda Bay Industrial Estate, and all concerns regarding the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights should be directed to WBN.
“Huayou’s smelters are not located within Weda Bay Nickel’s concession, but in the industrial estate,” Stevanus said.
“They opened the greenfield. We did not. We’re just a tenant in the industrial estate.”
However, Stevanus said, authorities need a comprehensive study to investigate the true extent of the O’Hongana Manyawa territory before the authorities can determine appropriate no-go zone boundaries for the indigenous people.
“What the Western media wants is for the whole island of Halmahera to be made into [an area] for the uncontacted,” Stevanus said.
“Is that possible? Is it realistic?”
Meanwhile, on its website, Eramet said there is “no evidence” that the O’Hongana Manyawa live in isolation within and around WBN’s concession area, despite findings by several NGOs, such as Survival International and Transparency International Indonesia, that suggest otherwise.
Even so, Eramet stated it is “open” to the no-go zone idea.
“We remain open to collaborating with all parties involved to find a solution that prioritizes both responsible resource development and the well-being of the O’Hongana Manyawa,” Eramet wrote.
Rukka Sombolinggi, the secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), said collaboration is indeed the key.
Sombolinggi welcomed the idea of establishing a no-go zone to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, which AMAN has championed in various global forums.
But the authorities must involve relevant parties with adequate understanding when developing such areas, including experts or academics, and the indigenous communities themselves, she added.
“We need to support indigenous peoples to be able to protect the forests they’ve been guarding all this time,” Sombolinggi said.
“Why? Because the best ecosystems, including the forests that exist today, which allow us to survive as a world civilization, all exist because Indigenous peoples have protected them.”
The Ministry of Environment and Forestry declined BBC News Indonesia’s request for an interview. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) likewise did not answer questions about proposals to establish a no-go zone.
However, ESDM spokesperson Agus Cahyono Adi said WBN remains “committed to complying with existing regulations and applying good mining principles”.
On the loss of O’Hongana Manyawa’s living space due to nickel mining, Adi said the government is deeply concerned and has prepared several activities to “honor” and “improve the welfare” of the community.
“We have begun resettling the community in East Halmahera so they can access education, health care, and housing,” Adi said.
“Some of them have already received basic education. Those who have are now working, whether in nearby communities or at mining sites.”
In effect, the government’s 2024 answer reprises a 1960s playbook: resettlement.
The bitter reality
After serving seven years of a 15-year sentence, Bokum was released from prison on Jan. 24, 2022.
He was granted early release, but seven years is hardly a short time.
During his time in prison, Bokum learned to speak, read, and write the Indonesian language. He converted to Protestantism and began attending services regularly. He was also introduced to mobile phones, stylish clothes, and perfume.
“He always asked us to bring perfume when we visited. He wanted lavender-scented,” said Maharani Caroline, Bokum and Nuhu’s attorney from the Marimoi Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in East Halmahera.
At the Class II A Correctional Facility in Ternate, Bokum’s cellmate was Paulus (not his real name), a Tobelo man who had been arrested on corruption charges.
At first, nothing about Paulus raised red flags for Caroline. Paulus, who speaks Tobelo Dalam, often interpreted during Caroline’s visits while Bokum was still learning Indonesian.
One day, prison officials told Caroline that a lawyer had visited Bokum.
The visitor turned out to be an attorney, an acquaintance of Paulus from Manado, North Sulawesi, who asked Bokum to sign a power of attorney for land sales and to open a bank account. Trusting Paulus, Bokum signed.
Shocked to hear about it, Caroline immediately called Paulus to find out what happened.
“He said, ‘No, that’s what Bokum wanted,'” Caroline said, recalling Paulus’ answer.
“He gave all sorts of excuses, but he never gave me the power-of-attorney document.”
Shortly after, Paulus blocked Caroline’s number. Paulus avoided Caroline whenever she visited Bokum until his own release, which came before Bokum’s.
On the day Bokum was released from prison, Paulus showed up with a businessman and a police officer, trying to pick up Bokum.
Prison guards tipped off Caroline. She panicked and immediately called Faris Bobero, a writer and researcher, and Munadi Kilkoda, who was then chairman of AMAN North Maluku, asking them to get Bokum first.
Bokum was eventually taken to a prison officer’s house. Paulus and his two companions followed. Caroline went there and confronted them.
“Who are you?” Caroline asked the three.
They claimed to be from a humanitarian foundation that regularly helped the Tobelo Dalam people, Caroline said.
“That was what they said, but I knew one of them was a police officer,” she added.
After a few days at the prison officer’s house, they moved Bokum to the AMAN North Maluku office in Ternate.
Bokum stayed there for around a month, waiting for Syaiful Madjid to get back from Jakarta.
Madjid is a sociologist from Muhammadiyah University of North Maluku. He was supposed to take Bokum back to the forest.
“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to bring him home,” Caroline said.
Madjid finally arrived. As they said goodbye, Bokum told Caroline that he wanted to plant a garden when he got home.
“What garden?” Caroline said, jokingly.
“You’ve got no land left. Better get some pots.”
They laughed.
Bokum and Madjid then departed for Halmahera. After finding his family in the Ake Jira forest, Bokum called Caroline on the cell phone he had brought from the city.
“Have you started farming yet?”
“The trees are all gone. There’s nothing left.”
Caroline’s joke had become reality.
Bokum told her that he was shocked to see how drastically the forest had changed since his arrest. Bokum said now he had to go much deeper into the forest to find his family, and even deeper if he wanted to farm.
While Bokum was away, nickel mining had ramped up, spawning “land mafias” that carved up and sold off forest land on Halmahera to companies for profit, according to Transparency International Indonesia research.
Eko Cahyono, a senior researcher at the Sajogyo Institute who worked on the research, explained how these land mafias operate.
First, “hunters” scout the forest for land that mining companies are interested in. After finding promising areas, they line up financial and political backing before heading back into the forest to camp out for months.
Their mission? Mark the boundaries of their target land, which can span hundreds of hectares, Cahyono said.
“They don’t care who owns the land. If there’s land they want, they parcel it out,” Cahyono said.
According to the research, the perpetrators then obtain land ownership certificates from village offices, sell the parcels through brokers to nickel companies, and divide the proceeds among all parties involved.
As a result, Cahyono said, the O’Hongana Manyawa are increasingly being displaced from their ancestral lands. Forests they have protected for centuries are being seized and destroyed for nickel mining.
What is unfolding on Halmahera, he added, could amount to “ethnogenocide” against the O’Hongana Manyawa. And if all of this persists, the community could be driven to the edge of extinction.
Caroline Pearce, the director of Survival International, expressed similar concerns. Nickel mining operations on Halmahera, she said, have created a “human rights disaster” that risks triggering “genocide” against the O’Hongana Manyawa.
That’s why Survival International continues to lobby mining companies, as well as electric vehicle and battery manufacturers, to halt operations or investments on Halmahera that are destroying forests and displacing the O’Hongana Manyawa.
These efforts appear to be bearing fruit.
In May 2024, Tesla said it was exploring the idea of establishing a no-go zone for mining and urged its Indonesian suppliers to protect indigenous rights.
A month later, BASF, the German battery materials producer, announced it was canceling its partnership with Eramet SA on the Sonic Bay project worth US$2.6 billion.
Through this project, BASF and Eramet previously planned to build a new HPAL plant in the Weda Bay Industrial Estate on Halmahera.
BASF said it was withdrawing from the project due to “changes in the global nickel market”. The abundance of options for nickel supply meant the company felt no need to build its own HPAL plant and secure direct supply from Indonesia.
Beyond that, Survival International said it believes significant public pressure and Tesla’s statement about the no-go zone influenced BASF’s withdrawal.
However, Sonic Bay is just one of hundreds of nickel smelter projects in Indonesia.
In 2023, Indonesia had 116 nickel smelter projects, including some that were already operational, some under construction, and the rest still in the planning stages.
Just the 47 smelters that were running in 2023 required 233.5 million tons of nickel ore, even though Indonesia produced only 193 million tons that year.
If all the projects are completed, they would need up to 526.5 million tons of nickel ore every year.
It’s hard to imagine what will happen to Bokum and other O’Hongana Manyawa once all these smelters are running and nickel mining spreads even further across Halmahera.
Bokum refuses to leave the forest and his territory, except to attend church once a week and occasionally charge his mobile phone.
Bokum now has everything the government always said indigenous people need. He can read and write. He practices a religion, uses a mobile phone, and wears stylish clothes.
Yet his home and heart remain in Halmahera’s forest. And Bokum, Caroline said, just wants to live in peace.
Reporters Tri Wahyuni in Indonesia and Martin Yip in Hong Kong contributed to this story, which was originally published in Indonesian by BBC News.
The original piece won the 2025 SOPA Award for Excellence in Bahasa Indonesia News Reporting and was awarded second prize in the Contribution to Civil Rights category at the 2025 Fetisov Journalism Awards. It was translated into English by Anne Parisianne and edited by Viriya Singgih.