Bangka, Indonesia – Residents of a centuries-old coastal settlement in the world's largest tin-mining outpost – Bangka Island – fear that the environmental damage over just a few decades is behind a frightening rise in reports of violent deaths.
In February, local fisher Jauhari became the latest person here on Bangka's west coast to be killed by an estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). The 40-year-old was likely the 21st victim in the last five years, according to local wildlife charity Alobi Foundation.
The saltwater crocodile – the world's largest reptile – can exceed 6 meters (20 feet) in length weighing up to 2 tons (4,400 pounds) and live more than 70 years. On Bangka Island, it ordinarily lurks quietly beneath the surface of estuaries and lagoons.
"This has happened because many swamps and tributaries that are the habitat of estuarine crocodiles have been damaged by illegal tin mining, and then turned into oil palm plantations," Suhadi, who lives in western Bangka's Menduk village, told Mongabay Indonesia in late March.
For some local people, 40-year-old Jauhari's passing was a signal of how environmental damage can introduce new forms of violence into communities, a pattern that will intensify as climate pressures compound.
One study published in the journal Biological Conservation in 2023 counted 665 cases of crocodile attacks in Indonesia in press reports from 2017 to 2019.
Indonesia accounts for more crocodile attacks than anywhere else in the world, according to CrocAttack, a database managed by the Australian crocodile researcher Brandon Sideleau.
Over the long term, climate change may also raise the specter of crocodile encounters by altering both human and animal behavior: People spend more time in water during hotter weather, while warmer temperatures also raise crocodiles' metabolism, researchers noted in the 2023 study.
But here in Bangka today, community figures and animal rescuers worry extraction for global supply chains is likely to blame.
As many as 1,000 hectares (around 2,500 acres) of oil palm plantations and around 250 illegal tin mining sites have taken over the Menduk wetlands, said Suhadi, who is also the manager of a community group established by Indonesia's largest environmental pressure group, Walhi.
The 42-kilometer (26-mile) Menduk River has supported settlements here since at least the 7th century, with a Srivijaya Kingdom site at the river mouth and upper reaches that have long sustained fishing and farming economies.
Across the upper Menduk River basin, oil palm plantations and settlements have today displaced these traditional crops and humid forests.
"The loss of habitat often occurs in parallel with the establishment of human settlements, which intensify human activities in and around water bodies inhabited by crocodiles," Indonesian researchers noted in the same 2023 study.
Wetland destruction
More than a quarter of global tin once came from Bangka, a territory smaller than Puerto Rico. More recently, the island has drawn scrutiny as the focus of Indonesia's largest corruption investigation.
In 2024, prosecutors said a conspiracy linked to state tin miner PT Timah enabled widespread illegal mining across Bangka, causing unprecedented environmental damage and losses of around $18 billion in public money, likely the country's largest corruption probe.
"The long-standing tin mining industry in the Bangka Belitung Islands has left a legacy of complex ecological crises, including thousands of abandoned mining pits (kolong), land degradation, and the dislocation of local livelihoods," Bangka-Belitung University's Herdiyanti and colleagues wrote in the journal Society in 2025.
The head of Jada Bahrin village, a locality in Bangka, Asari, resigned in March citing pressure to give approval as illegal tin mining spread along the Menduk River. Residents said forests were cut off for oil palm, degrading wetlands with knock-on effects such as diminished fish stocks. And some in Menduk are now too fearful to enter the water.
"We're afraid some people might fall victim to estuarine crocodile attacks, especially around the river and swamps," Suhadi said.
Available data on human-crocodile encounters show these fears may be well-founded.
"Human-estuarine crocodile conflicts occur in all districts and cities in the Bangka-Belitung Islands – since 2008, conflicts have occurred annually," said Endi R. Yusuf, manager of Bangka-based Alobi Foundation's Animal Rescue Center.
"It not only results in human [fatalities], but also the deaths of several estuarine crocodiles," he added.
Reservation required
Alobi's animal sanctuary on Bangka Island is at capacity, and the charity says it is struggling to find safe sites to release rescued animals. This has prompted calls for creation of a protected habitat.
"A conservation area is really needed in the Bangka-Belitung islands to accommodate estuarine crocodiles," Endi said, adding that the charity had identified intact wetlands in Central Bangka district where such a zone could be established.
Others in civil society are calling for the government to review all mining and conduct a full rehabilitation of the landscape.
"What's needed isn't just to create or designate a conservation area for estuarine crocodiles, but to also restore the condition of the rivers, swamps and mangroves," said Jessix Amundian, director of local nonprofit Tumbek for Earth.
An inscription discovered in 1892 on the west coast of Bangka Island detailing crime and punishment in the Srivijaya Kingdom showed these wetlands were inhabited almost 1,500 years ago.
More than a third of the old-growth forest in this island province has been lost in just over two decades.
That environmental shift has brought diverse harms to communities, ranging from pollution of water sources to more frequent landslides.
Moreover, it may also have unleashed a violent conflict as giant crocodiles increasingly encounter people living on the coast of Bangka.
"Crocodiles whose habitats have been destroyed migrate to other crocodile areas where habitats are still healthy," Endi said. "But then they conflict over territory and food – and they become aggressive, including toward humans."
"The root of the conflict is the destruction of the wetlands," Suhadi said. "If we want to stop the conflict, we must stop destroying wetlands."
Citations
Ardiantiono, M., Henkanaththegedara, S. M., Sideleau, B., Sheherazade, Anwar, Y., Haidir, I. A., & Amarasinghe, A. A. T. (2023). Integrating social and ecological information to identify high-risk areas of human-crocodile conflict in the Indonesian Archipelago. Biological Conservation, 280, 109965. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109965
Herdiyanti, H., Suyanto, B., & Mas'udah, S. (2025). Subordinated Ecologies and Livelihood Transformation in Post-Mining Bangka Belitung: Community Dynamics in a Post-Extractive Landscape. Society, 13(2), 675-691. doi:10.33019/society.v13i2.826