Raja Ampat sits at the heart of the Coral Triangle, the most marine-biodiverse region on Earth. The Indonesian archipelago — four large islands and more than 1,500 smaller ones, spread across 3.66 million hectares of West Papua — contains an estimated 75 percent of the world’s coral species. Its nine Marine Protected Areas, established progressively from 2004, now cover 2 million hectares. The entire regency is a designated shark sanctuary. Fishing is restricted to local communities under traditional customary law.
In September 2025, UNESCO designated Raja Ampat a Biosphere Reserve — recognition of one of the planet’s most carefully managed marine conservation regimes. The five-year management plan runs to 2029, with a new institution bringing together local governments, Indigenous representatives, and other stakeholders.
The same archipelago contains, on its small islands, more than 22,000 hectares of nickel mining concessions.
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, a metal central to electric vehicle batteries and energy storage. The current government promotes nickel extraction as part of the clean-energy transition. In Raja Ampat, that transition is being built — literally — on top of the world’s most biodiverse coral system. A 2025 spatial analysis by environmental research groups Auriga Nusantara and Earth Insight identified that 2,400 hectares of coral reef sit within a five-kilometre radius of active mining concessions, putting them at direct risk from sedimentation. More than 500 hectares of forest on the small mining islands have already been cleared. Field photos from late 2025 documented broken Acropora corals near mining camps even at exploration stage.
After a wave of public protest in June 2025 catalysed by the #SaveRajaAmpat campaign, the Indonesian government announced the revocation of four mining permits — PT Kawei Sejahtera Mining, PT Anugerah Surya Pratama, PT Mulia Raymond Perkasa, PT Nurham. The fifth and largest operator, PT Gag Nikel — a state-owned enterprise on Gag Island — was not included in the revocation.
As of late January 2026, no official revocation letters had been published for any of the four announced permits, despite Energy Ministry claims and multiple information requests from Greenpeace Indonesia. A December 2025 aerial survey found no evidence of restoration work on the previously mined areas.
This is what conservation looks like at the front edge of a real conflict between climate-transition policy and ecosystem protection — and what it looks like when the official announcement and the actual administrative action drift apart over a period of months. UNESCO has not commented publicly on the mining threat; an August 2025 advisory document from the agency acknowledged the proposed biosphere reserve area is rich in nickel and asked the Indonesian government for detailed information on concession locations and environmental impacts before approving the biosphere designation. The designation went ahead in September.
For the people who live in Raja Ampat — more than 64,000 across the regency, many of them dependent on small-scale fisheries and the growing eco-tourism industry — the stakes are not abstract. The 2025 Greenpeace field surveys recorded community members reporting that fishing had become more difficult, that ocean sedimentation had increased near barge operations, that the social fabric of villages was being torn by the selective hiring patterns of the mining companies.
The story remains active. The revocation letters have not been issued. PT Gag Nikel remains operational. Raja Ampat sits on UNESCO’s list of model biosphere reserves and on the active concession map of the world’s largest nickel producer simultaneously.