Green agency opposes mining in protected forest

Green agency opposes mining in protected forest

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The East Kalimantan Environmental Impact Control Agency
(Bapedalda) warned the Kutai Kartangera administration against
exploiting the coal deposit on the 61,850-hectare protected Bukit
and Sungai Soeharto, saying it would raise serious environmental
and economic problems.

"We will not issue a permit, should the Kutai regency
administration want to exploit the coal in the protected areas,"
chief of the local office of the Environmental Impact Control
Agency Kaspoel Basran said in Samarinda on Monday.

Kaspoel was responding to the Kutai regency administration's
plan to exploit 122 million to 150 million tons of coal in the
protected areas. The mining plan has gained approval from the
Kutai regency legislative council with the reason that it would
not cause any negative impact on the environment of the protected
forest areas. Under the regional autonomy law, regency
administrations have the authority to explore their natural
resources to improve their income.

Kaspoel ruled out the reasons as unacceptable, saying the
protected tropical forest areas, a home to rich biodiversity,
biomass and rare species, would become a thing of the past should
the regency administration exploit the coal.

According to the environmental law, Bapedal, an agency under
the jurisdiction of the office of the environment minister, has
the authority to issue or refuse permission for any mining
activities on the basis of their environmental impacts as set out
in a study (Amdal).

Kaspoel said the planned coal mining would certainly harm the
protected forests' ecosystem and biodiversity and cause massive
erosion that could inundate Samarinda and numerous villages
around it.

"The planned coal mining will cause deforestation, affect the
forests' function as water catchment areas to prevent flooding
and landslides, harm the rich biodiversity and the Mulawarman
botanical garden and threaten the rare species of fauna in the
forested areas," he said. He added it would also produce
large cavities caused by the mining activities and the barren
areas would cause massive erosion on the hilly land.

The 61,850-ha forests, which were inaugurated as protected
areas on May 20, 1991, were divided into zones of protected
forest, safari garden, tourist resort, forest education areas,
forest research center managed by Mulawarman University, scout
camping areas and a timber museum.

The presence of mining activities in the forest would almost
certainly promote new housing development and other human
activities that would have a detrimental effect on the forested
areas and their ecosystem.

"That is why the regency administration should review its
decision to exploit the coal deposit because it will cause
suffering both to the environment and people in the province. The
local administration should consider not only the financial
advantages but also the material losses to the environment and to
humanity," Antara news agency quoted Kaspoel as saying.

With financial assistance from the Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Ministry of Education and Culture
has designated the protected forest as a research station
operated by Mulawarman University.

The Kutai regency legislature has thrown its weight behind the
planned mining as the forest areas contained "hot spots" (areas
on fire) based on the coal deposits and fossil fuels, which could
trigger fires in the forests.

But the United States-based Office of Surface Mining (OSM) has
provided modern technology to extinguish the hot spots by burying
them with noncombustible material after they have been excavated.

So far, at least 80 hot spots have been extinguished.