Mountain villagers in Trenggalek protect their springs against mining plans
Yayum Kumai
The temperature drops as the road winds uphill. The air feels fresher and the traffic noise is replaced by the gentle sigh of a mountain wind rustling the trees and by the sound of crickets. Our vehicle moves between huge trees towards one of Trenggalek's highest points, Mount Semungklung. The tranquility and beauty of the forest environment is complemented by the coffee produced from this land. Plus, the friendly welcome of the locals. This adds to the serenity of the afternoon, which doesn't feel hot at all.
Part of the highland area of Mount Semungklung and surrounding mountains fall within the administrative area of Sumberbening Village. This village is also home to the springs that irrigate other villages below, even during the dry season. Sumber Bening can be translated literally: ‘Source of clear water.’
The success of Sumberbening residents in protecting their springs and forest environment earned them an award in 2022, under the Climate Village Programme (ProKlim). This is a community-based climate change adaptation and mitigation programme from the Ministry of Environment. The conservation initiative continues to the present day through concrete actions, such as sustainable farming and waste management to help keep the springs sustainable.
A female climate activist from Sumberbening, Ani, shared with us the strong reasons for her involvement in ProKlim as well as in rejecting the mine. She just wants her local environment to be sustainable without mining. She says she is contented living in her village: ‘Life is good here, the food is good, it’s quiet!’ (‘Urip neng kene enak, makanan enak, ayem!’).
The protected forest area of Sumberbening Village also hosts lovely tropical rainforest biodiversity. Its karst-based ecosystem is unique. How ironic then, that precisely this area has become the victim of business interests from multinational mining companies.
For generations, none of the residents of Sumberbening, or even of Trenggalek in general, ever imagined their area would become the target of multinational investors. Originally just a rumour, it soon turned out that information on the gold mining plan was government policy.
Fighting the ‘mystery’
The Trenggalek Regent issued his exploration permit way back in 2009. Then in 2018, there was suddenly an Environmental Impact Assessment document for gold mining projects in Trenggalek District. It covered a concession area totalling 12,813 hectares in 14 sub-districts. Throughout the assessment process carried out in nine sub-districts in Trenggalek Regency, public participation only involved a few ‘pre-conditioned’ residents of Ngadimulyo and Karangrejo Villages. In fact, in accordance with civic rights guaranteed by law, the wider community must be involved in every environmental impact assessment and environmental permit process.
The community only heard word-of-mouth rumours of the mining plans. Luckily, one of those who heard it one day was Yoga, head of Sumberbening's official youth association Karangtaruna. Realising his home village had been declared a gold digging prospect, he immediately conducted an independent study.
Yoga paid serious attention to the risk of environmental impacts from mining in his area. This is because the place where he lives is one of Trenggalek's highland areas. According to data from the Trenggalek Central Bureau of Statistics for 2023, the upstream location of the water source for surrounding villages has a protected forest cover of 1468.4 hectares. This figure is small by comparison with that in neighbouring sub-districts. Protected forest in Munjungan and Watulimo sub-districts cover respectively 7183.6 and 5826.6 hectares. Both are also included in the 14 sub-district mining areas.
In 2016, Yoga's concern for the sustainability of forests and water in his area led him to meet Jhe, a karst ecosystem activist (see elsewhere in this edition of Inside Indonesia). The meeting led to a network of other environmentalists. One of them was Papang, an environmental and village economy activist based on the coast of Panggul sub-district. Papang also shared concerns about the sustainability of the water source (Konang River Watershed) with residents upstream of the Sentul mining prospect. They were concerned about coastal pollution, and the economic sustainability of small fishermen in Panggul.
It was not easy to convince villagers - or even the young activists themselves - of the threat mining posed to their environment. Their imagination could not process it, because information about the project never reached the community.
Eventually, these young people, along with a network of activists from outside the Trenggalek area, initiated a biodiversity study of the karst ecosystem at Mount Semungklung and its surroundings. This self-assessment was aimed at preparing an academic document about the status of the Trenggalek Karst Essential Ecosystem Area to submit to the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
Separately, activism to resist mining was growing in the Trenggalek city area among groups of young people there as well. Suripto and Trigus were among the pioneers. Again, they did not get information about the Trenggalek gold mining project from the local government's information disclosure system, but from a leak of spatial planning data from within the government office. This data breach immediately sparked concern among Trenggalek's young people.
The social-media campaign and the production of community media coverage managed by Trigus and friends led to a meeting with Jhe, Papang and Yoga. An environmental alliance was formed connecting young people in Sumberbening and other villages with a network of local NGOs, with Trenggalek religious groups such as the Anshor Youth Movement, Fatayat NU (an autonomous organisation under Nahdlatul Ulama), Muhammadiyah Youth, and Church Youth, and even with national environmental organisations such as Wahana Lingkungan Hidup (Walhi), the Muhammadiyah Law and Human Rights Council, and the Muhammadiyah Institute for Wisdom and Public Policy.
Even so, the adverse impacts of mining remain a mystery to most people. ‘Nothing has happened until now’ (‘Iki enek tenan opo ora’ in Javanese) - this is how people express their confusion about activists' environmental conservation campaigns. This is because, in the years since this issue emerged, there has been no mining exploitation activity.
Persuading religious leaders
Activists who attempt to convince the public of mining’s adverse effects have to deal with a thousand and one cunning strategies by the mining companies to win the hearts of the community. The companies also take a cultural approach through Islamic religious leaders. Everything is carried out with an abundance of corporate money – they think they can ‘buy’ everything.
There is for example the provision of donations to victims of floods and landslides in 2022. A landslide in Ngadimulyo Village occurred in one of the mining priority prospects - the Buluroto Prospect. But instead of this leading to a reevaluation of mining plans, the company built up its image as a saviour to disaster victims.
In an interview, Handi Andrian, General Manager of External Affairs, and Imam Rosyidi, Public Relations of the External Department, claimed that their company PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara (SMN) was there to help the community, not like the activists who were away protesting in Jakarta. ‘You can have a demo anytime. Flood: Fact! We were the first,’ the company claimed. At around that time the Trenggalek People's Alliance was appealing to relevant ministries and other government agencies in Jakarta.
The company's abundant cash reserves are also used to participate in community activities, such as the provision of sacrificial animals for the Eid al-Adha Feast in Ngadimulyo, Sumberbening and Karangrejo villages. Far East Gold has prospects to extract gold and copper in all three villages. Ceremonial assistance like this is what corporations do to get into the community, especially to win the hearts of village policy makers.
Corruption-collusion-nepotism (Korupsi-Kolusi-Nepotisme, KKN) also occurs among government elites and religious leaders. This was revealed to us by Bu Nyai, a female environmental activist and also the head of a religious school (pesantren). She reprimanded the Ngadimulyo Village Head in the context of the relationship between teacher and religious student (santri). But he replied: ‘What an opportunity, Ibu, this is a gift from God.’ This argument of his paved the way for the company to enter his village.
In addition, the Nahdlatul Ulama organisation at the regional level also received financial assistance for disaster management through its alms-giving institutions (zakat and amil). Assistance was provided for the drought in Buluroto - one of the prospect sites.
Activities from aid distribution to participation in the celebration of Muslim holidays are framed through news reports ranging from the local to national levels. General audiences who don’t closely follow the Far East Gold (FEG) or PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara (SMN) mining story in Trenggalek — FEG has owned SMN shares since 2022 - do not understand that the company is only there to mine the wealth buried in the earth below their feet. By no means all the media reports bother to explain the mining context.
The challenge of rejecting the mine is therefore a layered one. It starts with building public awareness and public courage to demand environmental rights. It then moves on through narrative wars in the mass media and social media, to consolidating with influential religious leaders.
Anti-mining protest triggered by continued exploration by the company in the forest of Ngadimulyo Village, whereas the company’s permit to work there (Izin Pinjam Pakai Kawasan Hutan, IPPKH) had expired without being renewed. The third person from the left in the front is Gus Zaki. (Photo: Beni Kusuma Wardani).
Activists have made efforts to consolidate with NU leaders. Gus Zaki is a pesantren leader. He encouraged a routine consultative meeting within NU called Bahtsul Masail in the Trenggalek area to discuss the gold mining issue and to think how religious leaders could address it. This resulted in a statement that anti-mining protest was valid on the grounds that mining causes ‘... harm due to loss of springs and livelihoods, so it is haram,’ Gus Zaki told us over the phone.
However, a declaration of moral attitudes is not binding. Leaders of other pesantren in Trenggalek remained silent and did not take a stance against the company's activities. A similar attitude was shown by the Supreme Leadership of Nadhlatul Ulama (PBNU) when an alliance of Trenggalek environmental fighters ‘occupied’ Jakarta in 2022. Requests for help in rejecting the damage (mudharat) caused by mining – so I was told when I chatted with several members of the Trenggalek People's Alliance – were met with the response: ‘The job of religious teachers is to study the Quran.’
Civil resistance in a democratic oligarchic state
Advocacy through structural channels against Far East Gold's mining project in Trenggalek is a road full of twists and turns. Not to mention that the state apparatus often tramples on public participation rights. Let alone the right to speak out against mining for reasons protected by the constitution. The Trenggalek gold mining plan has been maladministered from the start, but it is a difficult advocacy nut to crack.
The project is said to be ‘maladministrative’ because it never existed in the Trenggalek 2012-2032 Regional Spatial Plan document as approved by the legislature, which is where gold mining designations for 14 sub-districts should go. It was subsequently amended without involving the wider public. If indeed this project was to be included in the regional development framework, then it should have been preceded by a complete study, and it must not overlap with other regulated spatial utilisation. In reality, PT SMN's mining concession has encroached on the use of a number of protected forest areas and karst geological protected areas.
While this issue remained unresolved, the East Java regional government issued a production operation permit through the East Java Governor’s Decree dated 24 June 2019. The governor, regent, or whoever had the authority, should not have allowed this mining to proceed, because the planned excavation of priority prospects located in protected forest areas will be carried out using the highly destructive open pit method.
Unfortunately, in 2020 a legal umbrella product was published in Jakarta concerned with accelerating the economy. It was called the Job Creation Law (UU Cipta Kerja). One of its privisions was that it amputated the function of regulating and managing regional mineral and coal resources formerly held by district governments. So all the efforts by citizens to get a proper evaluation of the mining licence ran smack-bang into the provincial governor's desk. And it was on that desk that the new spatial document was signed and ratified.
East Java's 2023-2043 spatial document, which refers to the Job Creation Law, provides a huge loophole to permit what Walhi in East Java calls an ‘ecological apocalypse.’ There are articles in it allowing mining exploitation in protected forest and karst areas.
When the state orchestrates its legal and policy instruments in such a way, it makes it difficult for people to get environmental justice. The forest cover of Mount Semungklung sustains a huge variety of living communities. But this means nothing to mining companies and oligarchic governments. Everything can be plundered and dredged out, down to the bowels of the earth, in the name of money and economic development.
Yayum Kumai (yayumkumai@gmail.com) is a researcher affiliated with the Muhammadiyah research institute Lembaga Hikmah dan Kebijakan Publik PP Muhammadiyah.
