Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Balikpapan/Jakarta – It is not only plantations but also oil and gas companies that threaten to turn parts of Papua into an industrial wasteland.
American multinational ConocoPhillips announced that it was planning to restart exploration, including seismic testing, in the Warim block – located several hundred kilometers inland from Merauke, Papua – in the near future.
The Forum to Care for Papua's Natural Resources, which opposes the move, said ConocoPhillips would only aggravate symptoms of social breakdown and environmental damage if it moved in because most corporations were only interested in profits, without caring about the environment and the Papuan indigenous people.
"As with other corporations in Papua, ConocoPhillips will only destroy the land used for extraction, destroy agricultural land, convert forests into industrial areas and reduce the land available for the local hunter and gatherer people. In the long term, mining [including oil and gas exploitation] is a main contributor to turning land into wasteland, which is then almost impossible to restore," the forum said in a press release.
According to the forum, mining in West Papua has caused land, water and air pollution such as dust, poisonous gases and noise. Coastal fish enclosures and coral reefs have been destroyed, while floods and landslides have wiped out biodiversity.
"Acidic water flows into rivers and eventually the sea, where it has destroyed coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. Mining causes various health problems, and local infrastructure such as roads are severely damaged. Mining also means new migrants move in to the area, either working for the companies or starting their own business in the mining areas," the forum said.
It added that mining creates symptoms of social distress such as prostitution, alcohol abuse, gambling, and other social ills. Land conflicts can occur, bringing with them a shift in sociocultural values. Food sources such as forest gardens are polluted or damaged, meaning harvests fail. These are just some examples of the complex problems which the Papuan people in general suffer.
Uncontrolled mining exploration
Mining activities continue to get out of control as regional administrations easily grant mining companies permits to boost regional earnings without considering the negative impacts on their regions.
The East Kalimantan Environmental Agency revealed that of the 1,386 mining permits issued in the province, most of them were located near public facilities such as schools, community health centers, public service offices and residential areas.
Environment Ministerial Decree No. 4/2012 states a mining site should be at least 500 meters away from public facilities but facts show that many companies have violated the decree.
"Not only in terms of proximity, the [decree] also regulates the width of the concentrated mining holes which should not exceed 20 percent of the whole mining site and 30 percent for fragmented mining sites. The 20 percent and 30 percent hole is already too big and it's environmentally unfriendly," the agency's head of environmental and contamination control Suyitno said on Wednesday.
Suyitno said it was rather difficult to implement the regulation because many of the mining companies were already in operation before the decree was issued and the decree was only effective for new mining companies or miners that wanted to open new fields.
Ahmad Taufik Hidayat, head of Kutai Kertanegara's Environmental Agency in East Kalimantan said the agency continued to create awareness of the decree.
"The case in which a company conducted mining activities near Sangasana high school in Kutai Kertanegara has to be punished. It violated the regulation because the proximity was just 30 meters away from the school. Ibu Rita [Kutai Kertanegara district head] has recommended the company's license be revoked," he said.
Separately, East Kalimantan Energy and Mineral Resources Office's head of mining businesses Markus Taruk Allo said there were thousands of coal miners in the region and hundreds of them were located near public facilities.
Markus said the East Kalimantan provincial administration had difficulties regulating miners because the central government had still not approved the province's proposed mining spatial planning (RTRW).
"We have agreed to stop mining [activities] near public facilities. This is in accordance with Environment Ministerial Decree No. 4/2012 regarding the environmentally-friendly indicator for business and/or opened coal mining activities," he said.
However, Markus said he could not blame companies that conducted mining activities near residential areas because the residences did not exist when they obtained the permit.
"Mining sites near residential areas occurred because East Kalimantan's proposed mining RTRW has still not been approved by the central [government]. The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has actually given the green light but the obstacle comes from parliament," he said.
Forests and mines exploited
A congress by indigenous people called on Kalimantan's provincial administrations to set up a team to study the possibility of making the island a special autonomous region in a bid to narrow the wide revenue gaps the island received compared to the central government.
The congress said Kalimantan has given a lot to the country in the form of mining, plantation and forestry but facts showed its people remained marginalized.
"Our forests have been depleted, the mines are even worse. Oil and coal have been exploited across the island," Sabran Achmad, head of the indigenous Dayak Council said last Sunday, adding the coal and oil were mostly used to generate power on the island of Java.
He added that indigenous Kalimantan people who lived in remote areas were still lagging behind on various sectors. "Many roads are damaged. The condition of Kalimantan remains the same, despite what income is passed on to the central [government]," he said.
Corruptions rampant
Corruption remained rampant in both Kalimantan and Papua with many people saying poverty on both islands was institutionalized by illegal practices condoned by local authorities.
A Papuan Police officer recently made headlines for his vast wealth allegedly raised from illegal logging businesses. An international environmental group, which documented these illegal logging activities, has welcomed the decision by antigraft investigators to probe the case.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency released a statement in response to an announcement by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that it would investigate allegations that Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus, an officer with the Sorong District Police in West Papua province, passed on sums amounting to $1 million to senior officers between January and April this year.
"We warmly welcome the KPK's intervention in the Labora Sitorus case," Faith Doherty, the head of the EIA's forest campaign, said in the statement.
"Police corruption has facilitated the illegal decimation of Indonesia's forests for years and undermined the government's wider efforts to reform the timber trade. EIA has been campaigning for real enforcement against those such as Labora Sitorus for over a decade; perhaps, with the KPK involvement, justice may finally be served in this one case."
Corruption practices are also believed to have plagued the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry. In a recent high-profile case the KPK banned Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Secretary General Waryono Karno from traveling abroad after investigators allegedly found $200,000 in US banknotes in his office.
Reports also said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik had been under the KPK's scrutiny for allegedly receiving kickbacks from an oil company that wanted to enter the country's lucrative oil and gas sector although the KPK have denied this.