Timika: With devastating coronavirus work across the country, desperate Indonesians flock to illegal gold mines, as the dizzying value of valuable steel overcomes the threat to their lives and the environment.
Frightened by the economic destruction caused by the pandemic, consumers and investors around global seized gold, a hedge that opposes volatility, took its value to a record of more than $2,000 (DH 7,346. 40) last month. in Indonesia’s illegal mineral-rich mining industry, where staff ignore the risk of arrest, mercury poisoning or getting caught in the middle of shootings.
The father of two, Mustafa, is one of many people who play cat and mouse with the government in the restless Papua region while searching for nuggets on a river near the vast Grasberg site in Freeport, one of them. of the world’s largest gold mines.
On a smart day, Mustafa collects a gram of gold by sifting it into the dust with a cloth filter, which he can sell to a local merchant for about 800,000 rupees ($55), a small sum in one of Indonesia’s poorest regions.
Miners here use mercury, he said, but many other risks lurk in the rugged territory of eastern Indonesia.
The concern of arrest is widespread and trapped amid fatal struggles between security forces and independence-seeking rebels caught in a decades-old insurgency.
“We are more here the pandemic because the value of gold has risen,” Mustafa told the AFP in a phone interview.
“We are under threat of being arrested by security forces, but we have no functions because we want cash for our families. “
Hard paints also carry the threat of coronavirus or skin infections by vading debris-filled water into the nearvia mine.
“It is very harmful to our health. Some of my friends and I have skin diseases,” Mustafa said. “But thank God, so far no one has spread the virus. “
‘Ecological disaster’
Thousands of miles west of Kalimantan, the Indonesian segment of Borneo Island, police arrested 400 gold miners on charges of illegally operating in a conservation area this month, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Here, mercury risks to miners are serious, said Sustyo Iriyono, director of forest prevention and coverage at the Ministry of the Environment.
“Recent arrests in Kalimantan show that illegal activity is huge,” he said.
Although the ministry does not yet have reliable data, Iriyono said illicit mining had higher in the country, adding the densely populated island of Java and remote Sumbawa.
“The maximum gold value of the pandemic is the stimulus behind thisArray . . . illegal activity,” he said.
“They benefit from destroying the environment. We’re looking for a solution. “
Environmental activist Aiesh Rumbekwan said the “massive increase” in unauthorized mining is because other people are desperate to feed their families in a pandemic economy.
Government assistance has been successful in many parts of the expanding archipelago nation.
“Illegal miners (often) use mercury to speed up the process and this will damage the surroundings and where this activity connects to water resources such as lakes or rivers,” said Rumbekwan, who heads the Papua segment of the Walhi Environmental Network.
“This can lead to an ecological catastrophe. “
Indonesia banned the use of mercury for artisanal miners in 2017, but harmful metal, which can cause nerve formula and cause disability in newborns, can still be purchased on the black market.
The livelihood of at least one million Indonesians is supported through small-scale mining, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which promotes mercury-free technologies.
Despite pandemic restrictions, there are reports of uns licensed operators taking dozens of national migrants to makeshift mining sites across the country, which have long been fatal accidents.
“There is no component of the authorities,” Rumbekwan said.
Dear reader,
This segment is about life in the United Arab Emirates and data without which you cannot live.
Sign up to read and complete gulfnews. com