Fragments of mining fires come from Colombia, not Indonesia

Indonesia The public's environmental damage to the Eastern Islands has revoked the licenses of several mining companies from Raja Ampat. But local police say the rumor that the excavator from Nickel is untrue. Fake posts distort Colombia’s clips.

Indonesian Language Facebook On June 8, 2025, the Indonesian Language Post read: “On June 8, 2025, at about 12:00 in the Papua era, the indigenous people of the Raja Ampat Regency burned out an excavator owned by a nickel mining company operating on its customary territory.”

It includes footage of a helicopter flying over an open-air area in the middle of the forest, where several excavators caught fire.

“This action is a form of community anger and refusal to extractive industries, which are harming the environment, threatening living spaces and ignoring the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Similar posts also spread on Facebook and Tiktok after posting videos on Greenpeace, Indonesia, showing environmental losses to the three islands due to nickel mining projects (archive links).

The movement of NGOs has led to increasingly calls from politicians and celebrities to withdraw mining permits.

The government subsequently revoked four of four of the five companies operating in the Coral Triangle, a popular diving site, one of the world's most pristine reefs.

However, there are no formal reports of the protests mentioned in the post.

“As of today, there is no burning incident at the mining site,” Anis DJ, spokesman for the Southwestern Papua Police Force, told AFP on June 12.

Reverse image search on Google using KeyFrames found a video posted on Instagram on June 5, 2025. The title says it was shot in Colombia (archive link).

Further keyword searches found a similar clip showing the same landscape and burning equipment and uploaded Colombian media Región Al Día to Facebook on May 25, 2025 (Archive Link).

It said the video describes the operation of closing illegal mining sites in rural Zaragoza, Colombia.

A further search found an article published on the official website of the Columbia Police, which contained the corresponding images (archive link).

The operation was conducted by the Colombian National Police and the Aerospace Forces to oppose the “illegal exploitation of minerals in rural areas of the city of Zaragoza, Antiochia.”