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Mining moratorium for Donggala, says official

Donggala, Ekuatorial – Massive environmental destruction and heavy pressures from green activists prompted official of Donggala district, Central Sulawesi, to impose mining moratorium.

“We are giving a month time, from Aug 21 to Sept 21, to all miners to immediately complete their permits and other related requirements,” said Syamsul Alam, head of Donggala Energy and Mineral Resources Agency to Ekuatorial recently.

Furthermore, Alam said that they were going to apply four types of sanctions if companies failed to meet the deadline.
“First, ‘open’. It means companies are allowed to conduct their activities until the end of their mining permits,” he said. “Second, ‘conditionally-open’. It means companies can continue with their activities but they need to complete their requirements in a certain span of time. If they failed, then they will either temporary shut down or closed completely.”

Third, he added, ‘temporary-shut-down’ which means that all or most of the activities will be halted in a period of time. “The status will change If they can comply to the regulations,” he said. “And, the last one is ‘close’ meaning that all mining activities must stop.”

However, M. Fikri, Donggala Legal Aid advocate, felt pessimistic on the moratorium. “We met the moratorium team appointed by the agency. They did not have tools to impose the moratorium. So, we come to conclusion that it’s just a ploy made by them,” he said firmly.

For the past three years, there was significant increase of permits issued by local government. At least 45 companies have obtained mining permits, from previously ten permits on the 4,764-square-kilometers.

Furthermore, he said majority of the mining permit issued not in a proper process. In addition, not all permits have conducted environmental impact assessments or AMDAL. “Nearly all those 45 companies obtained mining permits not procedural. I am sure there are lots of companies don’t have AMDAL,” Fikri said. Januar Hakam

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