Illegal mining locations reach 713

A central (national) joint team to handle illegal mining activities reports that illegal miners have plundered a total of 713 locations in 52 districts in 16 provinces across the country, involving 67,000 people.

The team's secretary, Dedy Mulyadihardjo, said that the government suffered potential losses of Rp 315.1 billion (US$=Rp9,400) per annum from such illegal mining activities.

That potential losses did not include costs to repair or rehabilitate the environment that had been destroyed by illegal mining activities.

Dedy noted that West Kalimantan suffered most from illegal mining activities. Out of 713 illegal mining locations across the country, 287 locations were found in West Kalimantan, then followed by South Kalimantan with 133 locations, West Sumatra with 18 locations and North Sumatra with 8 locations.

He predicted that the actual number of locations of illegal mining activities would be a lot higher because it required hard works and a lot of resources to identify all illegal mining activities.

Illegal mining activities vary from areas to other areas, from merely a small household activities to meet their daily needs to a large scaled businesses financed by investors, supported by officials and protected security personnel.

He predicted that illegal miners produced around 30 tons of gold ore, 4.337 million tons of coal and 33.600 carats of diamond per annum.

According to the team's report, there are three finding on factors driving illegal mining. The first is poverty that drives local people to embark on illegal mining activities. Most of illegal mining activities is rooted on poverty.

The second trigger is social economic situation in each provinces, could affect the severity of illegal mining activities, and thirdly, there is no or lacking in coordination among related governmental parties to stop illegal mining. (*)