Quick Update on Mining and Forests in Indonesia

Over a year ago (Feb 08), I wrote a blog post about mining in protected forests in Indonesia, and thought I would do some quick research to find out what has happened on the issue in the meantime.

The Indonesian media (Jakarta Post 22/04/09) is reporting that a government regulation will soon be passed to allow mining under protected forests thereby clarifying an uncertainty in the Forestry Law which only prohibits open-pit mining in protected forest areas. In the article, the Energy and Mineral Resources Minister is quoted as saying that underground mining would be more costly but worth the benefits, as the forests of Kalimantan in particular are known to cover huge reserves of coal. The announcement has had mixed reactions. State mining company Antam has praised the regulation saying that it will be able to proceed with its North Sumatra operations that have been delayed since the Foresty law was introduced. Antam says it is confident that it will be able to handle the technical challenges of underground mining, although coal extractors are less confident of their ability to adapt from the usual open-pit methods (Jakarta Post, 27/04/09). Environmental groups such as Walhi have been less impressed, arguing that the Indonesian Government has already allowed 13 companies to operate open-pit mines in protected forests and this regulation will worsen the environmental impacts of mining (Reuters, 27/04/09).

It seems that the regulation will have little effect on one particular protected forest in East Kalimantan, the Kutai National Park (not that there is a great deal of forest left due to fires, deforestation and the “Dayak” incursion that began in 2007). The park is rumoured to cover large coal deposits. The latest on the park is that it is being “re-evaluated” and “reconstructed” due to an increasing population living in the park, a petrol station that has built there and continued deforestation for agricultural land. The current proposal is for the area of the National Park to be decreased from around 200,000 ha to less than 24,000 ha (Kompas, 29/04/09). It is certainly a complicated issue balancing the interests of the inhabitants of the park and demand for land with National Park conservation values, but one can’t help but be cynical…