Nickel Justice · WINNER 2026 Panel
Nickel sits at the heart of the global energy transition. Batteries, electric vehicles and grid storage all depend on it, and Indonesia supplies more of it than anywhere else. But the speed of that expansion raises questions that the demand figures do not answer: what happens to the soil, to the forests, and to the communities living next to the mines?
On Wednesday, 7 October 2026, I will join an interactive panel called Nickel Justice at the Week of Indonesia-Netherlands Education and Research (WINNER) 2026 to talk about exactly that.
The panel brings together Indonesian and Dutch-linked expertise across rural sociology, soil science, geospatial analysis, mining rehabilitation and phytomining. We will move from mining-affected communities to post-mining landscapes, and from rehabilitation to phytomining, connecting the social and environmental sides of the same problem. Part of the aim is practical: to identify new opportunities for interdisciplinary research between Indonesia and the Netherlands.
Speakers
- Dr Muhammad Obie, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Halu Oleo
- Dr Antony van der Ent, Biogeochemist, Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University & Research
- Imam Purwadi, PhD, geospatial data scientist, teaching mine mapping and monitoring at Universitas Sriwijaya
- Dr.sc.agr. Ir. Aiyen Tjoa, MSc, Lecturer at the Faculty of Agriculture and Vice Rector for Planning and Partnerships, Tadulako University
My part draws on two threads from this site: watching mine land open and recover from satellite imagery, and the search for hyperaccumulator plants that could one day recover metals while helping restore degraded ground.
Details
- When: Wednesday, 7 October 2026, 15:15 to 16:15 WIB (10:15 to 11:15 CEST)
- Where: Online via Zoom
- Session: Day 2, Stream 5, Session 2 (D2S5.2)
- Registration: free, and certificates of participation will be provided to attendees
Register for free → WINNER 2026 programme
