Bigger, dirtier, and more relentless: the world’s most destructive mines are coming to Indonesia
Gerry van Klinken and David Efendi
Metals are a non-renewable resource. They are getting harder to find; the high grade mines are exhausted. Yet modern societies – especially in the global North - want more of them all the time. The high price of gold constantly leads to new mines, even though only 10 per cent of the gold already mined is actually doing something useful (i.e., not as jewellery or bullion). The energy transition requires mining a vast range of new metals. Windmills, smart phones, and electric vehicles contain nickel and ‘rare earths.’ Mining these creates toxic wastes and moon-like for-ever landscapes.
The last metal mines on earth are low-grade deposits – large and dirty. Most are in the global South, where a history of imperialism has left behind governments that are often authoritarian and corrupt. Canadian investigative journalist Christopher Pollon in his 2023 book on global mining, Pitfall, calls them 'sacrifice zones - landscapes destroyed for the sake of benefits delivered somewhere else.' The consequence is conflict. 'The biggest bottleneck in metals supply over the coming decades,' he predicts, 'will … be the conflicts around environmental, social, and governance issues.'
This monster edition of Inside Indonesia looks at the ‘bottlenecks’ in Indonesian metal mining. They are right now causing a huge debate among citizens. David Efendi opens with an impassioned call to the country’s biggest religious organisations not to be coopted by government into the business-as-usual mining sector. Unable to face the prospect of going to hell alone for the ecocide they are causing, he says, the government is attempting to lure critical civil society over to its side by offering them a coal mine here and there.
Open-cut gold mines used to be located in 'remote' areas like Papua (Freeport), but they are now also being gouged out in densely populated Java. A consortium of Indonesian oligarchs has opened the first one at Tumpang Pitu in East Java. Photographs with Wahyu Eka Styawan’s article illustrate the extent of the devastation, and the strength of resistance in the face of repression. A similar mine has long been planned elsewhere in East Java – but so far not realised – by the Australian gold miner Far East Gold. Just rumours of a mine in Trenggalek were enough to stir local citizens to demand their right to continue life in a beautiful, fertile environment. Yayum Kumai traces the history and key personalities of their struggle. Jhe Mukti, whose love of caving led him to join protests against the planned mine, describes the positive emotions of being in touch with this magnificent landscape. Gerry van Klinken presents a short overview of Far East Gold – one of the few Australian miners still in Indonesia.
Next come four articles on lateritic nickel mining. Most people in the North are unaware of the immense destruction this unleashes on tropical lands. Mahesti Hasanah and Gerry van Klinken describe the 'sacrifice zone' now being created in the once green and quiet subsistence area of Sulawesi. The rush of mining money has transformed local politics too, writes Jiahui Zeng. People hope extraction might bring them some benefit, but most of it flows to Jakarta and China. Mario Yosryandi Sara explains why it is no exaggeration to describe nickel mining on Obi Island in Halmahera as 'ecocide.'
Australians used to be far more involved in the past, Lian Sinclair recounts. Today, Australia and Indonesia are both in the business of supplying nickel and rare earths for the energy transition in the global North. She asks: Could they perhaps work together? Gerry van Klinken, meanwhile, reviews Lian Sinclair’s book on popular anti-mining resistance in Indonesia.
Finally, scholar and punk vocalist Fathun Karib links all the articles in this edition to one single explanatory picture – capitalism and imperialism create extractive frontiers that even invade our human bodies. When people realise that this affects all of us, they may create an alternative politics from below that favours life instead of toxicity. Lyrics for three songs are included!
We hope this edition helps readers in the South to see the link between their deteriorating democratic life together and the extractive economy. It is mining that creates injustice and poverty, feeds corruption, and suppresses the environmental movement. And we hope readers in the North will be helped to ask: Where does our consumer ‘stuff’ actually come from? Is it worth the environmental and social cost to produce it?
Gerry van Klinken (gvanklinken@gmail.com) is a member of the board of Inside Indonesia. David Efendi (defendi83@gmail.com) lectures in politics at Muhammadiyah University in Yogyakarta.
