this article was published in the Jakarta Post daily on July 7, 2007
The Jakarta Post Daily, in the Opinion and Editorial page published 21 June 2007, quoted an article written by Yolanda Torrisi, who is renowned as the publisher of ASIA Miner Magazine in Melbourne. The article began by raising a concern over protracted legislation of the Indonesian new mining Bill called Undang-undang Pertambangan Mineral dan Batubara (Minerba) and attempts to further discuss the matters being debated, however it introduces other topics with poor valid data apparently only from single source, thus the article becomes tendentious and far from objective.
The main concern raised by the writer was the postponement of some mining companies’ operation due to administrative conditions that are not yet fulfilled by project owners. The cases brought in by the writer included the Toka Tindung Mine in North Sulawesi operated by Archipelago Res. subsidiary PT Meares Soputan Mining (MSM) and Dairi Zinc-lead project in North Sumatera owned by Herald Res. Both the owners are Australian companies.
The Toka Tindung gold mine is now facing severe problem since it has not yet received an environment certificate (EIA/AMDAL) from the Ministry of Environment. It has also failed to obtain the consent of local population and authorities. The writer’s comment that Toka Tindung project is supported by local communities lacks verification from other independent sources. I can only conclude that this comment has been made based only on the company’s press release. The facts suggest that the majority of the population around the mine living in Batuputih, Rindondoran, Pulisan, and Kalinaun villages rejected the project development. Their rejection has been delivered to various institutions from village to province and national levels based on concerns over environmental factors and the social security of the population around the mine. The biggest protest against MSM, in which more than 5,000 locals participated on July 13th 2006, resulted in attacks against protesters by thugs. MSM was suspected of being involved in this action since two of the main perpetrators were MSM employees.
Toka Tindung will be mined using the open pit method, which requires the conversion of large amounts of land without backfilling in the closure of mining. Together with the waste rock dump, the access road, the tailing dam, and the factory it occupies hundreds of hectares of land, which used to be productive plantations and the main source of livelihood to the local population. There’s no scenario put in place by Archipelago to replace the loss of livelihood among land owners. One thing for sure is that project won’t be able to employ them all. MSM is suspected of having forcefully taken over and occuping the land of locals. This is illustrated by a number of land disputes filed by 6 families in the State Court of Manado, North Sulawesi.
The bigger risk threatens coastal communities whose daily income is dependant on fishing activities in the nearby sea. More than 3,000 locals are involved in the fishing activities in the neighboring waters, using different sorts of equipment and different sizes of ship, which allows them to build fishing zones to prevent high competition. Fishing in this area has sustainably harvested marine resources for generations.
This established local production system is put in danger by MSM’s gold mining plan in terms of risk from the discharge of hazardous materials, both those materials put into the gold processing or those which originally come from the earth. Among the major risks are Acid Rock Drainage (ARD) and heavy metals from the open pit, the tailing dam, and the waste rock dump. Gold deposits are often associated with sulphuric rocks such as pyrite which can form acid once it has contact with water and oxygen. MSM’s record in handling the discharge matter is poor, so the security of the population and environment downstream has become vulnerable. On March 12th this year, a huge overflow of mud and water swiftly rolled down from Toka Tindung and flooded Rinondoran village. The video news broadcasted in national TV channel shows the flood was as waist high. Aside from the material loss, the flood also killed a lot of fish and created the biggest disaster event in the area. Rinondoran had not been hit by flash flood for a long time, until MSM cleared so many lands and crops in Toka Tindung that are classified as protected areas according to local land use regulation (RUTR). Locals also reported that MSM had diverted the river Maen to obtain water for its gold processing. This was all undertaken by MSM even before it secured the valid environmental certificate thus MSM has committed a violation of the Minister of Environment Decree on Environmental Impact Assessment.
MSM (Archipelago Res.) has frequently been warned by local communities, academics, civil societies, and even the Governor of North Sulawesi himself to submit to local land use regulation, which classifies Toka Tindung as a protected area. If only the company had the willingness to hear this concern and had conducted proper and honest risk assessments, then such accidents could be prevented. The mining companies in Indonesia tend to be convinced that they can do everything at the cost of the people and environment once the Contract of Work has been secured from central government. Now if they encounter problems with wide-spread objections against their destructive mining practice and plan, they blame the critics for creating non conducive climate for foreign investment while in fact they are damaging the mining investment climate themselves by refusing to apply best mining practices.
Archipelago therefore cannot be said to have “ fully complied with due process, having spent much of 2006 revising comprehensive environmental impact analysis documents that meet all Indonesian and International banking requirements” as the author has written.
With all the risks that created for the local environment and community, Archipelago (MSM) does not meet the provisions of the Equator Principle and the UNEP Statement by Financial Institutions on the Environment & Sustainable Development to which its creditor banks (West LB, ANZ, Societe Generale) are bound. Its violation and manipulation of local consent and Indonesian environmental regulations is, after all, the root of the problems it faces now. Mining proponents should put this matter right by taking into consideration the entire background and root of the problems from various sources and not just blindly demanding special treatment and exemption from the Government of Indonesia.
Last but not least, the citation made by the author that mining has contributed 30% to GDP of Laos is a false and is a misleading statement since in fact it only contributes 6%.[1] The study of World Bank in 2006 has just predicted that the sector’s contribution will increase to 10% of GDP by the fiscal year end.[2]
[1] National Social and Economic Development Strategy 2006-2010, Lao PDR
[2] Sector Plan for Sustainable Development of the Mining Sector in the Lao PDR. The World Bank 2006
