The making of triple frontier in mineral extraction, conservation, and agrarian livelihoods

The historical trajectory of resource control in tropical regions, from colonial to postcolonial periods, reveals persistent patterns of dispossession, environmental degradation, and social resistance. These dynamics are often intensified through ‘frontier territorialisation cycles’, which exacerbate land conflicts and socio-ecological pressures. Within this context, ‘double frontier’ describes sites where extractive and conservation regimes intersect, while ‘triple frontier’ capture overlapping extractive, conservation, and agrarian logics. Despite their significance, these frameworks remain underexplored, particularly regarding historical processes that shape contemporary landscapes. This study examines frontier-making through smallholder pepper cultivation within Indonesia’s largest multinational nickel mining concession in protected forest landscapes of Sulawesi. Using a mixed-methods approach, including spatial analysis, document review, in-depth interviews, and field observations, we trace territorial transformations over the past century. We show how frontiers have evolved and intensified through changing regulations, and shifting and growing market demand. Historical inequalities in access to concession lands and protected forests have intensified pressure on pepper smallholders, who respond to a tightening land squeeze through adaptive strategies while navigating legal ambiguities. The interaction of these processes produces a triple frontier, where the three domains converge and collide. The study highlights how historical legacies shape tropical landscapes, exposing the precarity of formal tenure systems, the resilience of smallholders under structural constraints, and the enduring influence of extractive and neoliberal conservation logics. We argue that equitable policy frameworks are critical for enhancing socio-ecological resilience and underscore the importance of integrating historical patterns with contemporary processes in the study and management of tropical resource frontiers.