Nickel, the “devil’s metal” that is ravaging New Caledonia

Isabelle Goa's (57) boots sink into the spongy mud of the Oundjo mangroves. Bending forward, she slowly moves toward the Pacific waves crashing against the rocky shore in the distance. Every few meters, she dips a stick into the mud. The surf and the sound of the wet earth take her back to her childhood, when her mother taught her how to catch crabs, fish, and shellfish for dinner.

“The mangroves are our pantry, our inexhaustible vegetable garden,” she says proudly as she walks. “But look at this disaster,” she adds immediately , pointing to the red mud sticking to her boots. The brush is receding to reveal a brown expanse, as vast as ten football fields. “We call this the dead zone. The earth is reddened by minerals. All the trees are dead. And it's all because of that murderous machine, over there a little further on. It's a monster.”

This “monster” is the metallurgical plant of the Koniambo nickel mine [known as the KNS mine], in the northwest of New Caledonia. From a distance, it resembles an industrial cathedral made of pipes and chimneys that rises above the mangroves. Emerging from the ground, it