On methodology

Scientific evidence is a powerful tool for accountability.

Satya Bumi's work in Kabaena Island produced a distinctive form of documentation: water and soil samples, dust testing from community homes, and urine analysis from community members, all conducted with full prior consent and with methodological guidance from a Columbia University researcher. The results showed heavy metal contamination across the majority of the Bajau community on Kabaena Island. That evidence has since prompted responses from UN Special rapporteur OHCHR and Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights expressing intent to visit Kabaena directly to assess conditions on the ground. The work also included capacity building with the Kabaena community on the human and environmental impacts of nickel mining, building awareness alongside the evidentiary record.

On what's working

Targeting consumer countries and demanding due diligence in supply chains are emerging and promising levers.

Indonesia does not yet have comprehensive due diligence requirements for critical mineral supply chains, and similar gaps exist in several countries where mineral extraction is expanding. Salma sees this as an opportunity for advocacy. She argues that engaging buyers, investors, and consumer countries, particularly in Europe, around stronger supply chain standards and accountability measures is one of the most effective ways to gain national support. For Salma, the international network connecting organizations across Indonesia and South America, and the declaration that emerged from the international convening, can support those efforts by bringing together perspectives from Indigenous communities across regions, providing a shared platform for ensuring those voices are included in policy and industry discussions about the energy transition.

On the intersection of climate and PIACI rights

Organizations working on critical minerals are finding that Indigenous rights are not a separate issue.

Although Satya Bumi is an environmental advocacy organization, it indirectly addresses issues related to the rights of indigenous peoples. Its focus is on critical minerals and environmental justice for ecosystems and people.  Their work on the ground consistently led to the same communities: the Bajau, whose marine territories have been contaminated; the Tolaki Mekongga, whose living spaces are being displaced by industrial parks; and Indigenous communities in Eastern Indonesia facing the expansion of nickel mining justified by the global energy transition. Salma's experience highlights how environmental impacts, extractive development, and Indigenous rights are often closely connected. Growing demand for transition minerals has made these intersections increasingly visible.

Conservation frameworks that exclude Indigenous peoples can replicate the same harms as extractive industries.

Indonesian regulatory frameworks for conservation and biodiversity often marginalize Indigenous involvement rather than protect it. As seen in Raja Ampat, where protected seas have been encroached upon by nickel mining, conservation without Indigenous peoples can become another form of dispossession. Salma argues that what's needed is a conservation framework built on a human rights approach, one that actively involves Indigenous communities rather than drawing boundaries around their territories without them.

On barriers

Threats to local partners and community members are the most serious security concern, and funding still flows to Jakarta rather than to the front lines.

The most immediate security risks Satya Bumi navigates are not to its own staff but to its partners and community contacts in the field, who interact directly with companies and security forces. Local advocates in southeast Sulawesi have faced police intimidation and surveillance, and community members are sometimes recruited by companies into local security structures that monitor and report on organizers. Satya Bumi maintains communication channels and relies on trusted local contacts to track conditions and coordinate safety.

Alongside these physical and digital threats, Salma names a structural problem: resources and funding consistently flow to Jakarta-based organizations, while communities and organizations in Eastern Indonesia, who have the most direct knowledge and the most at stake, remain under-resourced and sidelined.

On consolidating PIACI as a global category

The UN definition is broadly applicable, but it needs to say more about consent.

Salma finds the UN definition of isolated and initial-contact Indigenous peoples clear as a framework, but “it doesn't encompass some of the Indigenous communities in Indonesia.” A significant gap is that it doesn't adequately address consent. In Indonesia, many communities experienced forced contact through colonization. A definition that more explicitly centers how contact occurs, and whether it was consented to, would better capture the reality of communities in the Indonesian context.

On having a more inclusive and diverse category, Salma notes a double-edged risk: formal state registration of Indigenous communities can fulfill civil rights on paper while simultaneously enabling cultural erosion, as she has observed in her home province, where administrative inclusion of an Indigenous community led to the gradual Islamization of their language without their knowledge or consent.