Author ORCID Identifier
Yahya: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8623-8115
Muhammad Junaidi: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8905-9256
DOI
10.65844/2549-4333.1271
Abstract
The expansion of extractive industries, particularly nickel mining, has become a major driver of socio-ecological transformation and forest loss in the Global South. In Bahodopi, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, downstream industrial policies and global energy transition demands have rapidly transformed forested, agrarian, and coastal landscapes into industrial frontiers. This study exposes the green transition paradox, wherein global decarbonization efforts inadvertently produce severe environmental destruction and localized ecological crises at the resource frontier. Drawing on a political ecology framework and ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines recurrent flooding as a socio-ecological process shaped by mining expansion, political deforestation, and unequal power relations among the state, industry, and local communities. The findings demonstrate that flooding is not merely a hydrometeorological event but a hydrosocial outcome resulting from the systematic conversion of state and customary forest areas into mining concessions, combined with inadequate industrial drainage management. Ethnographic data reveal that local communities, especially smallholders and coastal residents, experience everyday ecological vulnerability through direct economic losses, crop failures, and limited access to corporate accountability. This study contributes to political ecology and forest governance scholarship on extractive frontiers by showing how ecological risks are socially produced and unevenly distributed through nickel industrialization in contemporary Indonesia. Ultimately, it highlights the urgent need to challenge technocratic solutions and integrate community-based forest protection into downstream mining policies to restore the ruptured forest-water nexus.
Recommended Citation
Yahya, Y., & Junaidi, M. (2026). When Ecology Encounters Industry: Dynamics of Local Community and Floodings in the Bahodopi Morowali Mining Area of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Forest and Society, 10(2), 624-647. https://doi.org/10.65844/2549-4333.1271 Available at: https://scholarhub.unhas.ac.id/fs/vol10/iss2/1
Pages
624-647
Received Date
28 May 2024
Accepted Date
25 June 2026