Illegal miners funded by businessmen

Illegal mining activities are getting rampant in some areas and have reached an alarming level, according to the chairman of the Indonesian Mining Association (IMA), PL Courtrier.

Courtrier said as quoted by Kompas as saying that illegal mining activities did not anymore use traditional equipment such as hoe or shovels to meet local people's daily needs, but now illegal mining activities have transformed themselves into a big industry involving heavy equipment and big fund as they involve investors.

Those investors acted not only as those providing fund, but many times also as the buyer of the minerals, mostly gold and coal, and then sold them to big companies in the domestic market or even export them.

Courtrier said the government should now pay more serious attention to these illegal mining activities because their activities had caused destruction to the environment, as they were not bound by any regulation to reclaim their ex-mining areas.

Their activities also often encroached into the concession areas belonging to legal mining companies that did not dare to challenge the operation of illegal miners, who are many times backed up by local authorities.

After being abandoned by illegal miners, legal mining companies often do not want to take over the abandoned mining areas, although there are still many minerals left behind, but the legal mining companies prefer not to touch those areas. Otherwise, they would be held responsible for the environmental destruction created by the illegal miners.

Courtrier said the number of illegal miners did not decrease, but tend to increase with the presence of investors. With lack of supervision from the government, illegal mining became more rampant in mining areas such as those in Kalimantan.

Therefore, AMI called on the government to take actions to reduce or stop altogether illegal mining activities. (*)