“Environmentally Friendly Mining” in Indonesia’s Protected Forests
Posted under: The Indonesian government is expected to pass a law soon which allows geothermal mining to be done in protected forests. Current forest law in Indonesia says that the only human activity allowed in these protected forests is for either education or research – these are pristine forests with a lot of biodiversity, so it’s important to keep them standing! Mining definitely does not fall into either of these categories, so when the law changes, the big question is whether these forests will still be “protected”.
Credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development – New laws in Indonesia would mean geothermal mining could be done in protected forest areas. Would these forests look just as pristine after 6 months of mining?
First things first: what exactly is geothermal energy? It’s heat energy generated and stored in the Earth – so there’s definitely a lot of it! By developing geothermal energy, Indonesia hopes they won’t be so dependant on oil-based fuels. Current estimates say Indonesia could be a world superpower of geothermal electricity. The bad news is that, it turns out about 80 percent of these geothermal reserves are located in (or rather, under) these protected forests.
So the next question obviously is: will they be cutting down these forests in order to “mine” for this energy? The official word is: No. The claim by the government is that these mining activities are environmentally friendly, so they will not harm forests. But how can they guarantee this? The truth is, they can’t: there are a lot of effects mining can have not only on the trees, but the plants and wildlife in the area. And if mining goes on unregulated in these previously protected forests, a lot of harm can be caused in very little time!
Stay tuned to see if these forests remain “protected” (will the law pass?) and if it does, will geothermal mining be “environmentally friendly” and not harm forest health?
