Mining endangers species in national park, say officials

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The operations of a gold mining firm in the Batang Gadis National Park in Mandailing Natal, North Sumatra, is threatening the survival of more than 500 species of rare plants and animals, local officials said on Friday.

Mandailing Natal Regent Amru Daulay said the Australia-based company, PT Sorikmas Mining, should stop its prospecting activities in the protected forest in order to prevent more damage to the environment.

The firm has been prospecting in the area since 1998.

Sorikmas was among the 13 companies that were given permission recently by the House of Representatives and the government to mine in protected areas across Indonesia.

"If PT Sorikmas Mining carries out its (production) activities, its waste will pollute the Batang Gadis river, which the local people use to make living," he said in Jakarta.

Amru said his administration and local people opposed all mining activities in the national park.

"However, since it (the company) has already destroyed part of the forest, we would let the it continue to operate in a limited space of about 1,000 hectares," he said.

Amru said some of the protected forest had been cut down as a result of the company's exploration activities, with the resulting erosion making landslides and floods more likely.

The prospecting also left some 400 large pits close to the nearby village of Sihayo, he said. "The company abandons these holes without burying them," he said.

Amru questioned why the central government allowed PT Sorikmas Mining to operate in the national park, when the company did not hold a license from the forestry ministry.

Director of biodiversity conservation Widodo Damono confirmed the ministry had yet to issue a license for the mining company.

Mandailing Natal forestry office Budi Ismoyo said the mining operation could endanger at least 222 species of plants and 289 species of animals known to inhabit the park.

Budi said a new species of the padma flower, the rafflesia, was found in the 108,000-hectare Batang Gadis, which also was the home of a rare insect eating plant, Nepenthes, and an uncommon mahogany-colored tree, the meranti.

"The park is also rich habitat for rare animals including the Sumatran tiger. We have recently found tiger a footprint with a diameter of 24 centimeters," Budi said.

Other endangered animals are found in the park, such as the Sumatran tapir, a unique species of wild goat and the Sumatran bear.

"The tapir found in our forest is different from the ordinary ones. It's bigger, almost as large as a bovine," Budi said.

A camera installed by researchers once captured an extremely rare golden cat (Catopuma temminekii) in the forest. "It's a very rare and almost extinct cat species globally," he said, adding that the limbless frog (Ichtyopis glutinisa) and three-horned frogs (Megaphyris nasuta) had also been sighted in the park.

Researchers from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the Ministry of Forestry, and the Conservation International (CI) Indonesia have discovered more than 1,000 unique microbes in the park.

"Samples of the microbes have been frozen and can be preserved for 15 years," Budi said.