It was 23 August and the morning sea breeze was still warm. Iwan, a 37-year-old fisherman from Kodingareng Island off the coast of Makassar, South Sulawesi, was happy to see a crowd of fish playing in the water. He smiled. It was a sign of luck.
“Usually if the fish are like that, we leave them to gather,” he tells New Naratif.
Iwan drifted in his boat on the water for a while, at a fishing point called Copong, waiting for the potential catch to grow in size. Two hours later, he gasped. There was a large ship on the horizon. As it got closer, the fish that had been playing on the surface of the water disappeared. The ship floated like a small hill in the middle of the ocean. It was a sand dredger with a tonnage of 24 thousand cubic metres. Her name was “Queen of the Netherlands” owned by PT Royal Boskalis.
Members only
Join New Naratif as a member to continue reading
We are independent, ad-free and pro-democracy. Our operations are member-funded. Membership starts from just US$5/month! Alternatively, write to sponsorship@newnaratif.com to request a free sponsored membership. As a member, you are supporting fair payment of freelancers, and a movement for democracy and transnational community building in Southeast Asia.
