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Around the turn of the century, the area around Lake Poso in Indonesia was wracked with communal conflict that left hundreds of people dead and thousands displaced. In the wake of this violence, local leaders embraced a hydroelectric project they hoped would help unite vying religious communities for a brighter future.Fifteen years later, construction on the 515-megawatt dam is only half complete, and the company has informed the community it will need to reshape the mouth of the lake and dredge the river it feeds.Local fishers fear changes to the lake and river will bring an end to traditional fishing practices that sustain thousands of families, while conservationists fear disruption to a unique and ancient ecosystem brimming with endemic species.Activists have tried to mount a legal challenge to halt the project, but have been told by local authorities that they must first present scientific proof that the project will harm the ecosystem. LAKE POSO, Indonesia – In the aftermath of a violent communal conflict that set neighbor against neighbor around this ancient lake in the mountains of eastern Indonesia, local leaders were eager for projects that promised a brighter future. In 2005, local officials welcomed a $700 million hydroelectric dam project. They hoped it would bring vying religious communities together for a 21st-century push for green progress on the island of Sulawesi. Residents agreed to give up land for the proposed three-level, 515-megawatt dam. That, they believed, was the hard part. But instead of healing the wounds from waves of interreligious violence that had left hundreds dead and thousands displaced, some area residents now say the project is bringing new threats to their communities and livelihoods. In 2018, after more than a decade of planning and construction, and with only half the project completed, the hydropower company told Poso’s 200,000 people that the project required more than just land. The company also needed to terraform the lake’s mouth. “It is as if they were hiding this,” says Christian Bontinge, 64, the elected cultural leader of Tentena, the village that sits on the lake’s sole river outlet. Villagers around the lake say the dam will endanger centuries-old livelihoods built on the ancient, unique ecosystem of Lake Poso. Opponents now face the burden of proving the dam will cause ecological harm, a race against time to collect and present evidence before the earthworks are completed.
A dredger and excavator at work shifting soil for the planned hydropower project. Image by Ian Morse for Mongabay
The company, PT Poso Energy, plans to dredge the Poso River, scraping tons of soil from the riverbed and dumping it in a marshy area downstream to strengthen the current where the river will flow over the turbines. If completed, the dredging threatens sustainable fishing practices, disrupting the livelihoods of thousands and an economy that supports far more. Conservationists also fear re-engineering the lake will disrupt an ecosystem with uncounted endemic species, one so ancient it can be used to study evolution. “Is it not cruel that we have to protect our own culture on our own land?” asks Protestant pastor Yombu Wuri, 63, who joined a group of activists after he saw other churches pressure pastors to avoid protest. Wuri, Bontinge and other opponents of the project call the group the Alliance of Lake Poso Guardians, and in November 2019, they lodged a police complaint alleging PT Poso Energy is damaging the environment in an area the local government promised to protect. The alliance is a small group of outspoken farmers, fishers, and other concerned locals. For almost a year, they have protested PT Poso Energy, owned by the family of former vice president Jusuf Kalla, with online campaigns and in meetings with local officials and police to explain the cultural significance of the lake. Early last November, after the company dismantled an almost century-old bridge, five more groups joined from the provincial capital, Palu.  Christian Bontinge, the elected cultural leader of Tentena, explains the company s plans. Image by Ian Morse for Mongabay.Because the company already has an environmental permit for the project, local police have placed the burden of proof on the anti-dam alliance. If the activists wish to pursue legal action, the police say they will first need to furnish scientific evidence the company is damaging ecosystems. The alliance has found an ally in a government authority, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). But with low funds, the team led by Gadis Sri Haryani, LIPI s head of limnology, has begun to pursue other means of funding. Due to time constraints, they may only find funding when the project is close to completion. “People have called us anti-development and anti-modernization, but why do you have to damage an ecosystem just to create electricity?” says Wilianita Selviana, 34, a former activist who has watched the dredging begin from her riverside house.
Members of the anti-dam alliance wear shirts describing themselves as Guardians of Lake Poso. Image by Ian Morse for Mongabay.
Indonesia has set itself an ambitious goal of obtaining 23% of its energy from renewable sources by 2025 and 31% by 2050. Despite a growing body of research suggesting that large hydroelectric dams can be a significant source of carbon emissions, the government remains resolutely committed to hydropower. It aims to generate 11% of total electricity from hydropower, up from 6.9% in 2018.
Large hydropower plants are necessary, a minister wrote in an International Hydropower Association report, to meet the demand of hotspots like North Konawe in Sulawesi, where nickel mines and smelters require hefty amounts of electricity. PT Poso Energy has said its plant’s electricity will fulfill local needs, but power will also be channeled to nickel hotspots via the island’s grid.
“It’s not possible that the electricity just goes to us here, because we don’t need that much. The electricity will likely go to Sorowako, for example,” says Lian Gogali, head of the local activist group Institute Mosintuwu, referring to one of the oldest sites of nickel mining in Indonesia, where transmission lines connect to Poso. Indonesia s state power company plans to build 200 kilometers (120 miles) of transmission lines from the Poso plant to Morowali, another center of the nickel industry.
Meanwhile, Lake Poso, and the communities who depend on it, will be left transformed.
 Structures for Wayamasapi, a tradtional eel fishing method, near Tentena town at the mouth of Lake Poso. Local people fear plans to reshape the flow of the Poso River will spell the end to this and other traditional fishing practices. Image by Ian Morse for Mongabay.
In reshaping the river, PT Poso Energy will strengthen the current to the hydropower plant, but drastically change Tentena village, located where the lake narrows out into a river.
The roughly 2 million cubic meters (71 million cubic feet) of soil that will be dredged from the riverbed will be relocated to a bend in the river that locals call Kompo Dongi, creating an artificial landmass that PT Poso Energy says will harbor a park for tourism and conservation.
In this small, marshy area, Poso natives hold a communal fishing event called mosango. When the dry season brings water levels down, hundreds of people from villages around the lake gather in the waist-deep water, wait for fish to gather, then simultaneously place upside-down bamboo baskets in the water, each trapping a small portion of the fish.
“It’s an icon of Poso, because it requires that we all work together and share the rewards,” says Hajay Ancura, 54, a local farmer.
Dredging boats arrived last year and started pumping soil into the marsh. This year is the first in hundreds that mosango will not be done, according to locals. In October, two women were arrested after boarding a dredging boat with gasoline and threatening to set it alight.
As PT Poso Energy fills in the dirt to create the landmass, it’s dredging soil from the area where two enduring eel fisheries feed the local economy.
Yusuf Manarang, 44, catches eels at the river’s mouth using a method locals call monyilo. When seasonal waters rise and the eels embark on a nighttime migration between the lake and sea, he boards his small boat with a spotlight and 4-meter (13-foot) spear. He can earn $100 from a night’s fishing, selling the eels to companies that export them as far as Japan. It has given him enough money to put his four kids through school.
“The government asks us, why aren’t you rich yet?” Yusuf says. “If the goal is to help us prosper, then build facilities that help us prosper, like schools, higher education, and hospitals. How is it possible that business is prioritized?”
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