Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan – The village of Mulawarman used to be surrounded by lush tropical trees and wildlife. But fast forward 13 years and the area is a barren wasteland, blackened by the coal dust from thousands of small pit mines scattered across the landscape.
A good night's sleep can be a luxury in this village, abuzz with earsplitting sounds of coal-crushing machines that run 24 hours a day.
"This whole place used to be a stretch of green fields dotted by trees," Mulawarman village chief Robert Siburian tells the Jakarta Globe. "Everyone [in the village] used to farm, but now it's all gone because of mining."
The changes in the village, located in Kutai Kartanegara district, began in 1999 when the central government decentralized its control on mining permits under the Regional Autonomy Law.
For Kutai Kartanegara, a district rich in natural resources, that meant opening up a floodgate of new permits for a number coal mining companies, which soon began trundling into Mulawarman.
The first company to enter the village was Kayan Putra Utama Coal, and before long there would be seven more companies, all granted the same permit to exploit Mulawarman's riches.
"Since regional autonomy was enacted, the mining permits have been issued like an overflowing river. It was that easy [to acquire a mining permit]," Robert says.
"People's lands were taken over [by the government]. Those with an ID card to their name were paid just Rp 1.25 million [$130] per hectare in compensation, and those without got just Rp 1 million per hectare," he adds. "The village since 1981 was established as a transmigration area, but why all of a sudden was the area was converted into a mining area?"
The village used to have 1,000 hectares of housing and farmland, now reduced to just 35 hectares. The original 450 hectares of rice paddies and 200 hectares of other crop plantations have disappeared.
That left the around 2,000 residents of Mulawarman living in poverty, with their livelihoods taken over by the mining companies. The village is now completely surrounded by mining concessions, some of them operating pits just 200 meters away from people's homes.
And Robert worries that eventually his village will become a ghost town as people move elsewhere, unable to cope with the suffocating coal dust and engine roars.
Two entire hamlets in Mulawarman have been wiped off the map as land clearing paved the way for devastating flash floods in 2008. Residents of the two hamlets had to be relocated when their homes and possessions were lost to the water and mud.
"Ever since the mining companies entered [the village], the residents have been getting nothing but trouble. We lost our livelihoods because there is no more space to plant rice. How can the government issue [mining] permits without the slightest consideration of how it will affect people?" Robert says.
He adds the villagers now have no choice but to petition the government to relocate them elsewhere. "We've agreed to be relocated. If things continue like this, there's nothing we can do. We've lost everything," he says.
The petition was first submitted in 2010, but to date there has been no response from the government.
Didik Agung Eko Wahono, a member of the Kutai Kartanegara district legislature, laments the condition faced by the people of Mulawarman and has urged the district administration to conduct an environmental audit on all mining activities.
"This is an environmental crime being committed by the [mining] companies. The administration must conduct an audit, and those found to have broken the law must have their permits revoked," he says.