From Coastal Livelihoods to the Nickel Frontier: A Political Ecology of Extraction and Its Impacts on Fishing Communities in Lelilef Waibulan, Central Halmahera

This study examines the socio-ecological transformation of the coastal area of Lelilef Waibulan, Central Halmahera, as a result of the expansion of the nickel mining industry.Employing a post-structural political ecology framework, it investigates how power, capital, and local knowledge interact in reshaping human-environment relations.Fieldwork was conducted through critical ethnography over four months (November 2024-February 2025), involving interviews with fishers, coastal women, customary leaders, village officials, and environmental activists.The findings reveal four major outcomes: first, the dispossession of space and access to marine resources through industrial zoning and infrastructure; second, the socio-economic restructuring of the community from a coastal livelihood economy to an industrial labor economy; third, environmental contamination and emerging public health risks linked to extractive operations; and fourth, the emergence of cultural resistance and the rearticulation of local ecological meanings in response to extractive capitalism.The analysis situates Lelilef Waibulan as a nickel frontier-an ecological and social boundary where global capitalist logics intersect with local moralecological systems.This research highlights the urgency of ecological justice and the recognition of coastal communities' rights within resource governance in Indonesia's mining regions.