Fidelis E. Satriastanti – The mining industry pointed out on Sunday that a much ballyhooed presidential decree allowing geothermal exploration in protected forests also allowed underground mining, including delving for minerals and coal.
Irwandy Arif, chairman of the Indonesian Mining Professionals Association, said that the decree signed by the president on Thursday referred to underground exploration, which could extend to resource mining.
"We've been waiting for this presidential regulation, especially for mining lead in Dairi, North Sumatra," he said. He added the country's open-pit mines were increasingly exhausted, so there was little choice but for miners to go deeper.
"The regulation gives legal certainty and will attract miners to invest more in silver, lead and gold mining," said Irwandy, who helped draft the presidential decree over the past three years.
Under the decree, signed on Thursday by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, resource exploitation in protected forests is allowed as long as it is underground, it did not change the general use and purpose of the area, and the operators include infrastructure that supports production activities in the protected areas.
To qualify for a permit, applicants must provide as compensation land that is twice the area of the concession they are seeking to exploit. They are also obliged to replant and rehabilitate affected river catchment areas of the same size as their concession. The permits are valid for 20 years and may be extended.
Irwandy said that while 90 percent of mining in Indonesia was of the open-pit variety, there were already several underground mines in operation, such as gold mines run by state-owned miner Antam in Pongkor, West Java, and Cibaliung, Banten.
"There's also an underground coal mine run by Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam in Sawahlunto, West Sumatra, while Freeport is also carrying out underground mining," he said. "Newmont has said it too will conduct underground mining."
Hadi Daryanto, the Forestry Ministry's secretary general, said underground mining resulted in less environmental degradation than open-pit mining, adding that while there would be some damage but it would be strictly controlled.
He said permission for underground mining would only be given in the case of protected forests, and not for conservation forests, national parks or nature reserves.
However, Abadi Purnomo, chairman of the Indonesian Geothermal Association (API), said 30 percent of the country's geothermal reserves were found in nature reserves, while another 30 percent was in protected forests.
"For protected forests, there are already several regulations stating that exploration is allowed as long as it's not open-pit mining, but not for nature reserves, national parks and conservation areas," he said.
He added that geothermal exploration should not be considered mining because "it's actually just extracting heat from groundwater, which is different from digging for mineral resources such as gold."
"It's also environmentally safe because we need trees to maintain the heat sources [to preserve the groundwater], and we only use up 0.001 percent of the total forest area just to install the pipes and infrastructure," Abadi said.