Government restricts coastal sand extraction to aid environment

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries has issued a decree on the zoning of the country's coastal and sea areas for sand quarrying, a policy that will reduce existing sand mining areas.

Safri Burhanuddin, director of research for maritime territory and nonliving resources at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said that the policy would help protect the country's marine environment.

"Under the zoning mechanism, some 50 percent of existing sand quarries would be prohibited from sand mining," he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

The ministerial decree was signed on Thursday by Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Rokhmin Damhuri, who is also chairman of a special team set up by President Megawati Soekarnoputri recently to help seek ways to limit the negative impact of sand quarrying on the country's coastal areas.

The marine environment, particularly in the waters of Riau, has been badly affected by rampant sand quarrying, including illegal activities. The sand from Riau, both legally and illegally extracted, is exported mostly to Singapore, which has a high demand for sand to support reclamation projects at the island state's coastal areas.

To help protect the marine environment, the central government took over supervision of sand quarrying in coastal areas from regional governments. The Ministry of Trade and Industry is in charge of the supervision and issuance of licenses for sand mining and its export.

Meanwhile, the team, led by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, is in charge of seeking ways on how to protect the marine environment. One alternative is via a zoning mechanism.

Elsewhere, Safri said that a zoning mechanism would help increase the price of Indonesian sand because coastal areas opened for sand quarrying would be shrinking, forcing companies to mine sand in deeper water, thus raising production costs and hence the selling price.

In addition to the environmental issue, sand exports to Singapore from Riau have been criticized because the sand is sold relatively cheaply.

"We have a strong bargaining position to raise the price of our sand to Singapore because Indonesia is competing only with Thailand," Safri said.

Singapore is estimated to require some 1.8 billion cubic meters of sand over the next eight years for its land reclamation work.

Riau has been exporting sand to Singapore for many years. The sand is sold for $$1.5 per cubic meter to international brokers, who then sell the sand to Singapore construction firms for $15 per cubic meter.

Uncontrolled sand extraction from the coastal areas of Riau has caused severe environmental damage, leading to the disappearance of a number of small islets from the province.