Western Australia: Fracking is ‘dead’, ALCOA scraps $40m gas deal | Asian Correspondent

Western Australia: Fracking is ‘dead’, ALCOA scraps $40m gas deal | Asian Correspondent
 Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon Jul 31, 2015

Western Australia: Fracking is ‘dead’, ALCOA scraps $40m gas deal

By Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon Jul 31, 2015 7:52AM UTC

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Indigenous communities lead the opposition against ALCOA’s fracking in the Kimberley (Photo: Supplied)
The call for a “frack free” Kimberley is winning, at least for now.  Greens hailed ALCOA Australia in dumping its $40 million deal with Buru Energy to supply up to 500 petajoules of gas, a deal struck eight years ago.
This came at a time when Buru was celebrating the official opening of its Ungani oil field, 100km east of Broome in the Canning Basin, on Wednesday. Ungani is the first oil development in the Kimberley in almost 30 years.
Earlier this year, Buru welcomed the support of the Broome Shire Council for the company’s Canning Basin gas exploration program after a motion to declare the Broome Shire “frack free” was defeated at the Council meeting.
Bu the tide is turning against fracking. Green groups declared the “death of fracking” in the Western Australian (WA) region and urged Buru to drop its plan to frack for shale gas.
The Wilderness Society WA said Thursday Buru must drop its plans to frack for shale gas in the Kimberley after Alcoa announced it had scrapped its deal to help fund the program. Wilderness Society WA Campaign Manager Jenita Enevoldsen said the Kimberley is Australia’s most pristine landscape and one of the last great wildernesses left on the planet.
“It is no place to experiment with the dangerous fracking techniques. Water is too important to risk in the Kimberley. Alcoa’s withdrawal signals the death of fracking in the Kimberley,” Enevoldsen said.

Australia’s indigenous flag is raised in protest to fracking on aboriginal land. (Photo: Supplied)
An overwhelming number of Western Australians in the Kimberley and Pilbara region have opposed fracking, a Department of Mines and Petroleum survey showed.  In 2014, the Yawuru Traditional Owners voted 96 per cent against fracking on their ancestral lands.
Wilderness Society WA said fracking risks poisoning people, groundwater, rivers, soils, farmland and wildlife. “We are playing Russian roulette with our groundwater, which is a critical for life and agriculture in the  driest inhabited continent on Earth,” Enevoldsen continued.
We have seen what has happened in the US and we don’t want that to happen here. Gas companies are draining our groundwater supplies and pumping toxic fracking and drilling fluids back. The fracking industry is in its early days in Australia but already there have been many problems – in the Pilliga Forest in New South Wales and in Australia’s biggest coal seam gas field, Tara, in inland Queensland.
The Western Australian Government needs to see what has happened elsewhere and ban fracking here. Forty thousand people have already signed a petition calling for a moratorium on fracking in WA.

ALCOA in action (Photo:Supplied)
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Why we need to worry about Burma’s extremist Ma Ba Tha monks | Asian Correspondent

Why we need to worry about Burma’s extremist Ma Ba Tha monks | Asian Correspondent
 Francis Wade Jul 30, 2015 

Why we need to worry about Burma’s extremist Ma Ba Tha monks

By Francis Wade Jul 30, 2015 8:34PM UTC

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Pic: AP.
One of the most concerning developments in any nascent democracy is the institutionalisation and mainstreaming of extremist ideologies. Countries undergoing political transitions are perhaps most susceptible to this, given that the conditions of early democratization — the jockeying of groups for power at a time when institutions are too weak to constrain those forces—are ripe for mass ideologies to take hold and proliferate. Groups can use more open media channels to manipulate nationalist sentiments, play on the public’s fears of what democracy will bring, and spread new “truths” about the hostile intentions of elements within society. They assert values of tradition, and warn that change of any sort—whether it be new political parties gaining power, or the demographic make-up of society altering—is inherently threatening. In doing so they gain widespread popular support for policies or actions that in other contexts appear extremist, but are seen to be just responses to the prospect of change.
Burma (Myanmar) has not escaped this. The most visible playmaker in this arena is the Ma Ba Tha monk group, which grew out of the anti-Muslim 969 movement and now has offices across the country, staffed by both monks and civilians. This week it took it upon itself toexpel a local NGO aiding flood victims in northern Burma on account of the fact that the NGO hadn’t coordinated with Ma Ba Tha over relief operations. In the town of Kawlin where the NGO had been working, nearly 50,000 people have been affected by the flood and therefore urgently require this assistance.
But what is perhaps more concerning than Ma Ba Tha’s actions — to deny aid to those who need it — is that it was able to do so with such ease; that it now has the confidence to wield authority in such a manner. That confidence doesn’t emerge from thin air — it requires the tacit backing, or indeed cowering, of elements within the state and the support of a sizeable chunk of the population. Several years ago Ma Ba Tha may not have netted such a quick result in Kawlin, but over time it has been able to build, brick by brick, a formidable institution with the power to steer debates in parliament and cajole MPs into backing discriminatory and outwardly anti-democratic laws that its members themselves crafted. It preaches an exclusionary brand of nationalism that has found widespread support because it ties the fate of the country to the fate of Buddhism, so that anyone not supportive of Buddhism — namely, other religions — doesn’t support the national project and, ergo, threatens Burma and those within it. It is fear-mongering of the most astute variety.
The government has lacked both the capacity and the will to rein in the group. The fact that parliament passed several highly discriminatory “Race and Religious Protection” laws shows that ideological support of the group exists at the highest levels of power. Of course not all in Burma back Ma Ba Tha — and vital and courageous voices rally against it — but it now carries enough influence to take it from the level of a small-scale activist collective to a kind of mass nationwide pressure group that can effectively write legislation. It has openly backed the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) — despite some conflict with it— and slandered the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) as Muslim-loving, unpatriotic troublemakers who will bring about exactly the kind of changes that Ma Ba Thahas been able to frame as so threatening. With the resources already available, popular fears that stem from the prospect of having such a “hostile” party in power can be quite easily activated, therefore drawing support away from the NLD. While this is unlikely to sway the result of elections in November, a focused campaign is well underway that could have longer-term repercussions.

Hardline Burmese monk Wirathu, the symbolic leader of the Ma Ba Tha group. Pic: AP.
U Wirathu, its symbolic leader, has talked of the group as a deity: “We came down from the sky … We are brilliant people.” This is particularly sinister because it carries the implicit message that those not ideologically aligned with it are the precise opposite—not pure, not brilliant, but nefarious and threatening. That dichotomy has driven much of its work—the “Race and Religious Protection” laws are geared towards protecting Buddhism from the evils of Islam, as if they are binary “good” and “bad” forces whose members all share those traits. Despite the facile nature of such a framing, the passing of the laws shows this campaign has proven highly effective.
“Uncivil society” groups like Ma Ba Tha can in many ways become more powerful than formal power holders, for they both heavily influence legislation yet are not constrained by the same laws that limit the clout of political parties and subject their actions to scrutiny. Their base isn’t made up of registered party members but fluid networks of supporters and agitators that exist across all rungs of society, and who can campaign on issues regardless of the rules of election cycles, or can threaten mass protests when things aren’t going their way. Their rhetoric is not tempered by political orthodoxy, but is free to create “facts” about rival groups, funnel them through increasingly open information channels, and prescribe quite sinister solutions to the problems supposedly created by those rivals.
So while we can be shocked at what has occurred in Kawlin, we shouldn’t be surprised. Ma Ba Tha’s power has been growing unchecked for too long, and now functions on two levels: the local, where its network of offices across Burma increasingly show signs of operating as de facto local authorities, and the national, where it can draw on an expanding civilian support base to pitch self-serving, but highly dangerous, policies to parliament with the veneer of popular backing. Groups like Ma Ba Tha are direct products of democratization — their goal is to exploit emerging freedoms of movement and information to capture state institutions when they are still weak. As we’ve seen in Burma, no one in power is putting up a fight — this void is exactly what Ma Ba Tha, now perhaps one of the biggest threats to Burma’s transition, needs to better direct the course of the transition.

Documentary exposes plight of indigenous people displaced by Malaysia’s mega-dams | Asian Correspondent

 Documentary exposes plight of indigenous people displaced by Malaysia’s mega-dams | Asian Correspondent
 Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon Jul 23, 2015

Documentary exposes plight of indigenous people displaced by Malaysia’s mega-dams

By Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon Jul 23, 2015 9:54AM UTC

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A new documentary shows how developmental projects like mega-dams have decimated the lives of indigenous people in Malaysia who have been displaced without proper resettlement or compensation.
The Borneo Project (BP) has released Broken Promises: Displaced by Dams, the third film in a series about the hydroelectric dams proposed for construction in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Broken Promises tells the story of forced displacement of indigenous peoples to make way for the dams. Although the dams are being built on native land, BP claims that indigenous communities have not been properly consulted and are being forcefully relocated from their communities. While the government promises full compensation, better schools, access to healthcare, housing, and adequate farmland, these promises are rarely, if ever, kept, the organization said.
According to the conservation group, the Baram Dam, the next in line to be built, is also going ahead against the will of the indigenous communities. They have been denied information, excluded from participation in studies and decision-making, and coerced into accepting the dam through threats and intimidation. They have thus been denied their rights to their lands, territories, and self-determination. The Baram people have actively protested the dam through rallies, conferences and two blockade sites that have halted progress on the dam since October 2013.
There is a long history of human rights abuses in Sarawak. Displacement and resettlement issues began long before the Baram Dam controversies. In 1998, for example, the government of Sarawak relocated around 10,000 people to the resettlement area of Sungai Asap to make way for the Bakun Dam. Over 15 years later these families are still struggling to make a living and Sungai Asap has been declared a resettlement disaster.
People were required to pay for their own housing, which forced many families into debt. Each family was promised 10 acres of farmland but was only provided wit three acres, often a half-day’s journey away, and often on infertile, rocky land.

Local people watch on the sidelines as heavy machinery arrives to build Murum Dam. Pic: Supplied.
The dam has polluted the river, poisoning their water source, spreading illness, and killing the fish they depend on for food and income. The resettlement site is surrounded by oil palm plantations and the people no longer have access to their former hunting grounds. Ironically adding insult to injury, the transmission lines carrying electricity from the Bakun Dam pass directly over Sungai Asap, but the relocated people cannot access the power for which they were displaced. Instead, they have government-managed diesel generators that are often locked because they are unable to afford the expensive costs of diesel.
“The race to accumulate wealth and money through mega-projects that only benefit the elite has led to a blatant disregard for human rights,” said Jettie Word, executive eirector of The Borneo Project.
Broken Promises was released in conjunction with a rally organized at the town of Long Lama, near one of the blockades sites, where Chief Minister Adenan is launching a new bridge. Hundreds of protesters are expected to gather at the blockade site and cross the river to receive Adenan and make it clear that the people of Baram do not want the Baram Dam.
Broken Promises can be viewed in English and Bahasa Malaysia on The Borneo Project’s website, www.borneoproject.org.
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Political implications of Thailand’s royal succession | New Mandala

Political implications of Thailand’s royal succession | New Mandala
Llewellyn McCann, 23 JULY 2015

Thai royalist holds a portrait of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Photo by EPA/ Rungroj Yongrit.

The King’s passing will create an enormous vacuum in Thai politics and there is palpable fear about Thailand’s future without him.

The imminent passing of the 87-year Thai monarch, Bhumibol Adulyadej, will send tectonic shock waves through Thailand’s body politic.

Bhumibol, the world’s longest-serving monarch, is a pillar of Thai politics. During his reign Thailand emerged as a $390 billion economy, a middle income state. Even the red shirt farmers in the impoverished northeast still understand the centrality he has played in their lives. Though criticism has grown, during his reign, they went from subsistence farmers to the aspirational middle class, setting the stage for the country’s current political conflict.  If nothing else, his passing creates an enormous vacuum in Thai politics and there is palpable fear about Thailand’s future without him. The uncertainty is real because the succession has the potential to upend Thai politics.

Under the 1924 Palace Law, which predates the establishment of the constitutional monarchy in 1932, the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn should ascend the throne as the male heir.  But that’s where politics comes in.  There can be little doubt that the May 2014 coup was thrown, in large part, in order to control the succession.  Neither the military nor the ultra-monarchists could fathom the Pheu Thai under direct, or even indirect, control of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to be in power during the transition.

But over a year since the coup, schisms have emerged between the National Committee on Peace and Order (NCPO) and the ultra-monarchists who fear not enough has been done to purge Thaksin and his political machine, and that the junta is still too concerned with even the pretenses of constitutional democracy. But most of all, the ultra-monarchists fear that the NCPO is likely to acquiesce on the issue of the Crown Prince’s ascension to the throne.

The ultra-monarchists, led by 94-year old Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda, have made abundantly clear that the Crown Prince is unfit to rule.  Prem views Vajiralongkorn as a peril to the institution of the monarchy and an existential threat to the wealth, power and privilege of the ultra-monarchists. They are willing to use all of the tools at their disposal to orchestrate either Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s ascension or at the least her regency over the Crown Prince’s infant son, born to his fourth wife.

The 1997 and 2007 constitutions both allowed for female succession to the throne.  The only part of the 2007 constitution that is currently still in force, following the 22 May 2014 coup, is Chapter II, the section on the monarchy. It has been incorporated into Chapter I of the draft constitution released in April 2015.  Chapter I, Section 22 states clearly: “succession to the Throne shall be in accordance with the Palace Law on Succession, B.E. 2467.” In Section 23, if the King has appointed his successor, the Council of Ministers submits the name to the National Assembly for endorsement.

As there is no time frame for submission for endorsement, it’s possible that the Council of Ministers delays forwarding a name by calling for an “extended period of mourning”; that in itself would weaken Vajiralongkorn’s legitimacy.

The draft constitution is vague on how the King names his successor.  If no heir is named, or if there is any doubt, then it is up to the Privy Council to submit a candidate for endorsement. If the Privy Council bypasses the Crown Prince, it has the legal authority (Chapter 1, Section 19) to name a regent. And Prem could move very quickly before the Crown Prince could build up momentum to stop this from happening, while the Queen has been incapacitated by stroke.

While some argue that Prime Minister Prayuth and the NCPO are firmly behind the Crown Prince’s accession, it’s not so simple. They, too, have misgivings about the Crown Prince and have utmost respect for Sirindhorn who gave tacit approval for the coup. Prayuth made this year, the completion of her Fifth Cycle, an official celebration.  But they cannot support Prem’s machinations for several reasons.

First, Prayuth and many of the NCPO come out of the 2nd Army, the Queen’s Guards and, until her 2012 stroke, the Queen had been vocal about wanting Vajiralongkorn on the throne. Second, the NCPO is concerned about the legal order of succession.  Though they have no compunction against throwing coups and suspending the constitutional order, they would not interfere with Palace Law. Third, though they may not like the Crown Prince, they believe that he can be managed.

But that is a gamble, as the Vajiralongkorn’s ascension to the throne could have profound implications for the future of Thai politics.  Under the many Thai constitutions – including the draft charter – the King reigns, but does not rule.  Yet for any observer of Thai politics, this is complete nonsense.  Even if indirectly, things are done in his name by what Duncan McCargo terms the “network monarchy.”

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Queen Sirikit and Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn review troops in Bangkok. Photo by AFP.

The Crown Prince’s views of the coup are unknown.  He was in Europe during the military takeover and has said little publicly since. The Crown Prince has a tenuous relationship with the military and ultra-monarchists, who largely despise him for hisscandalous behavior.

Yet, he appears to be making efforts to patch up the relationship to ensure his succession. In December 2014, he divorced his wife Princess Srirasmi and cut their son out of the line of succession.  Srirasmi was reviled by the monarchist elites; often described as a “bar girl,” whose presence soiled the royal lineage. She not only relinquished all of her royal titles, but her parents, three brothers, and members of her extended family were convicted of lese majeste and sentenced to three to five year prison terms in March 2015.

But Prem’s real concern is that Vajiralongkorn has the power to fundamentally upend Thai politics and roll back everything that the ultra-monarchists have tried to achieve since the 2006 coup.  The King is able to grant amnesties (Chapter 4, Section 194).  Thaksin and the Crown Prince were for many years quite close, infuriating the ultra-monarchists.  Though less public since Thaksin’s ouster, the two have met on at least one occasion, and they both have bristled with the old monarchist elites and military.

If the new king were to grant Thaksin amnesty, there is nothing that the military-dominated government or ultra-monarchists could do to prevent him from returning.  This would be a massive setback for the military that has done everything they can to keep Thaksin outside of the country and politically emasculated since 2006.

Is there a deal being done between the Crown Prince and Thaksin? Thaksin needs the support of the Crown Prince as without an amnesty, he will unlikely be allowed to return or recover his seized fortune.  But the Crown Prince also needs Thaksin, who can help legitimise his rule in the most populated parts of the country, especially Issarn, important as he enjoys none of the popular legitimacy of his father.

Even if Thaksin were to “retire” from active politics, his influence and presence in the country would be enormous.  Since the 2014 coup, Thaksin has maintained a low profile and called on his supporters to work with the junta.  This is the real reason that there was less violence following the coup than predicted: the military wasn’t necessarily adept at neutralising the red shirts; it’s that Thaksin ordered them to stand down as he tried to negotiate a grand bargain for himself and his sister, Yingluck.

There have been suggestions that junta member General Prawit Wongsuwan has quietly negotiated with Thaksin, which may seem completely counterintuitive. After all, the goal of the coup was to purge Thaksin from national politics, now enshrined in the draft constitution.  But here the junta is simply being realistic, betting that despite Prem’s efforts, the Crown Prince will ascend the throne.  While the junta seems completely unwilling to push through any sort of national reconciliation, the new king might force just that in attempt to quickly broaden his legitimacy.

Second, Prayuth does care about peace and security.  If Prem goes forward and installs Sirindhorn as either the monarch or the regent, Thaksin has no reason to hold back his red shirt supporters.

But there is a long-term calculation. King Bhumibol signed off on the 22 May coup, and “endorsed” the 250 person National Reform Committee and the replacing of martial law with rule under Article 44.

What if the new king doesn’t sign off or fails to endorse a cabinet, or prime minister, all of which are in his purview? Would he intervene if the NCPO tried to hold on to power or endorsee a constitution that all objective commentators view as destabilising?

This would be disastrous for the NCPO, but also for the military in the long run.  Although the coup was ostensibly thrown so the military will not have to throw another coup, it’s really hard to imagine the military not intervening in politics again.  The draft constitution sows the seeds of future political conflict.

To put it another way, could there be another coup, done in the name of the King, if the King is against the coup or does not acquiesce?  That’s the thing about Thai coups, once they get a “royal endorsement,” they are legal.

Prayuth and the military need the support of the Crown Prince, though Prem and the ultra-monarchists are doing everything they can to prevent such a deal.  What are the implications?

Violence, although a low possibility, cannot be ruled out. There is some concern about the 1st Army, which has been disenfranchised since the 2006 coup, taking orders from Prem. There is also concern about the “watermelon” soldiers from Issarn who are sympathetic to the red shirts.

If the King dies before an elected government comes to power (now pushed back toearly 2017), the military will likely hold on to power for an extended period of mourning.

The King will appoint a new 18-person Privy Council, people loyal to him.  It is highly unlikely that he will keep many, if any, of the current members; and many would refuse to serve under him. The Privy Council is also how the crown maintains control over the judiciary: currently three of its 20 members are former presidents of the Supreme Court, and their patronage networks run deep.

The Privy Council has sway over the military as it forwards the names of all flag officers to the King for endorsement. Thailand currently has 1,092 generals or flag officers, all appointed by  Bhumibol. The Crown Prince, who holds the rank of Air Chief Marshall, will promote a cadre that is loyal to him. Here the new King, should he chose, could thwart the power and the influence of the Eastern Tigers, who have dominated the Thai military politics and staged the 2006 and 2014 coups.  The new King could completely alter the seeding of protégés that Prayuth has overseen to maintain his influence, including his younger brother Preecha, a frontrunner to become the next army chief.

In short, there will be a wholesale turnover across the “Network Monarchy,” including the Crown Household Bureau, the Privy Council, the Crown Property Bureau, and all the royal foundations, a massive loss of institutional memory. The coronation of Vajiralongkorn is the greatest threat to the power and influence of the ultra-monarchists.

The military may also fear this, but they are looking to cut a deal to protect their own interests.  Vajiralongkorn is not a young man, already 62, and rumored to have hadserious health issues.  The military will most likely wait this one out and hope that Sirindhorn’s regency for his infant son comes sooner, rather than later.

Finally, there are human rights implications. Army chief General Udomdej Sitabutr has stated that the army’s primary responsibility is the “defense of the monarchy” and it has pursued lèse-majesté (Article 112 of the Criminal Code) cases aggressively, with some 51 cases since the coup, many of which have been tried in military courts with no right of appeal. Can the RTA continue to do this with a less popular monarch? Or conversely, will it increase the number to ingratiate themselves with the new King?

What is clear is that the institution of the monarchy will emerge weaker, at a time when popular agency is growing. Thai democracy cannot move forward when it is up against an elitist bureaucracy that is deferential to the crown, a judiciary that pledges allegiance to the King, not the constitution, a military that acts in its own self-interest, though in the name of the crown, and the crown itself, four institutions that see majoritarian democracy as an existential threat.

A weakened monarchy will ultimately undermine the military and bureaucracy. Then and only then, will Thai democracy begin to have a fighting chance.

Nothing scares the generals and ultra-monarchists more than this.

Llewellyn McCann is a pseudonym. The author is a long-time watcher of Southeast Asian politics.

Chatwadee Rose Amornpat - The Republic of Siam? | New Mandala

The Republic of Siam? | New Mandala
Chatwadee Rose Amornpat, 24 JULY 2015

Bangkok’s Democracy Monument shrouded in darkness. Photo by Natt Muangsiri on flickr.

If I had my way, my troubled home country would not be called Thailand, but the People’s Republic of Siam.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how the Thai people should react to the country’s latest coup led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha.

So far, the people have largely been too scared to say or do anything, because there are thieves in uniform everywhere.

But for me, the problem in Thailand has always been the monarchy and its network. Nothing ever happens in Thailand without the top royal’s approval, and this latest attack against the Thai people is no exception.

Now that the constitution has been illegally “cancelled” by General Prayuth, he has a free hand to do just about anything under the direction and watchful eyes of top royals.

The previous constitution wasn’t democratic either and was, in fact, titled in favour of the country’s elites. For example, the majority of the senators were appointed rather than elected.

The whole political game in Thailand during the past six months has been ludicrous. It has wasted so much money and time, and put Thailand backward in terms of economic progress and prestige.

Top elites and royals have always had the upper hand in Thailand. But I am not sure if they will prevail this time. We, the freedom and democracy loving Thai people inside Thailand and abroad, should move quickly to declare a republic.

This would have three immediate and major effects.

Firstly, everyone would be financially better off, as the Thai king’s personal fortune of some US$30 billion dollars, according to Forbes, could be confiscated and shared among poor Thai people.

Secondly, Article 112, which supports the country’s lese majeste law, would be declared null and void. Political prisoners will be set free. All pending Article 112 cases would be dismissed without prejudice.

All of the country’s brave and patriotic men and women could come home to rebuild a better nation. The ills of the country would then also be openly discussed without fear of reprisal.

Thirdly, the nation would immediately experience a period of political and economic stability, as King Bhumibol’s negative influence in Thai politics is neutralised, putting an end to decades of royal meddling.

Long live democracy and long live the great people of Siam.

Chatwadee Rose Amornpat is based in London. She was charged with lese majeste by the Thai military junta in July 2014. For previous New Mandalacoverage of her situation see this post.

The gold farmers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia | New Mandala

The gold farmers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia | New Mandala

NANCY LEE PELUSO, 

17 JULY 2015

ABOVE: The photo essay accompanying this article is hosted on YouTube. We recommend viewing in enlarged or full-screen mode.

……………………

Small-scale illegal mining in West Kalimantan is dangerous to human and environmental health.  It’s also a shot at economic independence for marginalised rural people.

“We are the petani kecil (small farmers),” Bang Adam said as we stood talking on top of a flow of dry tailings in a gold mining pit in western Kalimantan. It was only 9 am, but an excruciatingly hot equatorial sun shone down on us. The gnashing sound of dredges sucking up mud and sand in other parts of the pit caused him to talk more loudly than usual.

Bang Adam (not his real name) is a self-made man—not rich, but a small businessman who is proud that small-scale gold mining allowed him to escape poverty. He was orphaned at age nine. His mother died of cancer and his father left Adam and his eight brothers and sisters for another wife and family.

Today, Bang Adam has worked his way up from labouring in others’ mining pits to the status of ‘mine boss’. He runs three dredge sets, each with a nine-man crew of gold workers, all related to him. Over the past 10 years, he has provided work and training in the art of small-scale gold mining to many of his younger siblings and nephews. Having started from nothing, he was today contributing substantial income to the 27 families attached to those men. He regards the mining site as where he works, not as his home. His village, on the other hand, does not offer much remunerative work, though he and his family have access to several hectares of farm land. Moreover, the village in which he lives managed to keep oil palm companies from buying up their land. The costs of everyday living are just too high without off-farm work.

The crews’ three-month verbal contracts were almost up. They had found little gold this time, like most of the other crews in this sprawling mining complex some 600km from their home villages. Like other bosses this contract period, Bang Adam would forgive the advances loaned to workers’ families before the miners left for the mine site and absorb the costs of feeding the crews and running the operation. He was resigned to the losses but was optimistic that they would find more gold soon. He felt this 200 km² site, mined intensively over the last 20 years, had not yet given up all that it contained.

An economic opportunity
Smallholder gold mining has exploded across Indonesia over the last 20 years. Each site has its own history and manners of working; each pit or shaft within the broader mining sites experiences trajectories of boom and bust. Both the mining activities and the gold produced in these sites compete with those from the gigantic corporate miners known around the world: Freeport, Newmont, and Aurora. Though ‘small-scale’—in the sense that crews work at the direction of a mining boss/small businessman who runs the operations with his or her own money or others’ investments—its effects generate as much shock and awe to the uninitiated observer as do those of their corporate counterparts.

Yet despite the size, depth, and impacts of the behemoths, small-scale mining touches on many more Indonesian lives, environments, and livelihoods. Miners in the sites pictured in the photo essay above hail from nearby villages, or migrate from other parts of West Kalimantan or Java. Through the labour of small-scale miners and mine workers, gold mining provides a major source of income to rural families. This income is particularly important as rural families suffer from the declines in agricultural commodity prices. Most miners we spoke to described the organisation of work and the sharing of the finds as more acceptable and profitable than offered by plantation work or other labouring opportunities in their home areas.

Three main economic reasons—the decline in agroforestry commodity prices, the high potential returns from participation in gold mining, and the organisation of work among small-scale mining crews—are what keep interest in mining alive even when gold sources seem to be running thin.

No easy work
Most mining takes place in pits carved out in swamp or drier lowlands. After an initial hole in the ground is opened by inserting high-powered hoses into the ground, the miners spray water against the walls to make it deeper. Some pits give up gold at depths as shallow as 2 or 3 metres. Many run more dangerously deep—to 18 or 20 metres. Mine pits at that depth cannot be worked by the usual dredge sets (popularly called dompeng, after a brand name of a dredge imported from China). The smaller, 20-30 horsepower dredges can’t boost the gold-bearing mud out of such a deep mine pit; four to six cylinder automobile engines (mesin auto) are deployed for this task. Whether medium-sized dompeng or larger mesin auto, the engines send the mud up through long flexible hoses onto and over a wooden sluice structure.

In the morning, mine crews lay out carpet pieces on the downward sloping surface of the sluice to catch the heavier-than-mud gold flakes and (they hope!) gold chunks as the water propels them down it. A cone-shaped pile of tailings forms at the bottom edge of sluice. Someone may choose to rework these tailings at a later date, as they are likely to contain several grams of gold that were not captured on the first filtering. At the end of the day, miners remove the carpets from the sluice and shake the dust they contain into homemade panning pools of blue tarpaulin. The crew boss who works for the mining boss is entrusted with panning in that pool for the gold. Pools are not shared with other mining crews.

Mercury is used to consolidate the flakes in the pan and detergent is added to rid the gold flakes of the mud and sand that have stuck to them. A ball of gold, appearing encased in silvery mercury, is produced at the end of the panning exercise. The mercury is then burned off using small torches and home made ‘ovens’.  This is one of the most dangerous parts of the process—vaporised mercury is more available to be taken up by both human bodies and the environment. Moreover, clouds of mercury are thought to remain over a site for many days, increasing the time of exposure to humans in the area.

Shaft mining involves different labour processes. Shafts are dug into a hillside by hand, members of a mining crew taking turns with the hoe (cangkul), seeking an underground vein of gold-inflected rocks. Every man in the crew is required to take part in the digging, descending into the pit to pull up rocks, and cooking. The gold comes out embedded in rocks, not as swamp mud, and is generally found in conjunction with pyrite or what is known in American and Australian mines as ‘fool’s gold’. There is no ‘boss’; the gold, and money, are divided equally among the crew members after 10 per cent is given to the tuan tanah or land claimant, and either a percentage or a flat fee is paid to the gelondong, the owner of the gold mill.

The main shafts may be dug as deep as 30 metres. No canaries in these mines: diggers wear compressors (air tanks) to enable them to breathe at that depth. Many more perch air blowers on the shaft’s edges to literally blow air into its depths, sometimes directing the air through hoses or pipes. If they find a vein, they dig horizontally, following the vein as far as the available air will take them.

Deadly mistakes
This is not work for the squeamish or the timid.  Small-scale gold mining, like large scale gold mining, entails serious risks.  Miners know they are putting their lives on the line to do the work; they justify the risk by chalking it up to ‘luck’ and ‘fate’. In pits, the threat of landslides and burial alive is ever present. Indeed, when or whether a wall might collapse is partially a matter of chance—and carelessness.

One boss within the last year was distracted by the work in the pit when he walked up to an unstable edge thereof. It collapsed under him, and the sandy particles comprising the soil moved so fast that he could not claw his way back up to avoid burial. Four miners in the pit were buried with him. In other cases of pit mining, inexperienced miners can endanger their entire crew by spraying too far into the base of the wall, literally undermining it and causing it to collapse. Hillside shafts are also liable to collapse inward if miners do not bolster the walls with boards.

Some mining goes on under rivers, lakes, or in very wet swamps. In these liminal spaces where land and water mix unstably, miners dive, using compressors to provide their oxygen while they dig tunnels through the swampy soils under the river or lake. The danger in these environments is unknowingly digging into an old tunnel or breaking through the upper wall of soil that tenuously separates miners from the water body.  Rupturing the wall takes away their buffer, leading to the water rushing into the tunnel and causing many to drown. The uncertainties in all these risk scenarios are, again, regarded as fate. They are well known among miners— as are the specific cases in which five, eight, 10, 18 and more deaths have occurred in mere instants.

Part of the landscape
Why does this activity persist despite its criminalisation and the severe risks entailed in participation? Many miners we interviewed are not interested in the slow and low returns of smallholder agriculture, and are even less attracted by the low pay, conflicts, and poor conditions of labouring on the expanding plantations taking over West Kalimantan’s landscapes.  At all levels of work—as diggers, crew bosses, or mine bosses—many have come to regard themselves as professional miners. Those who stopped school after ninth, sixth, or even third grade explained that participation in gold mining is perhaps their only chance to work for more than a subsistence wage. These labour opportunities provided by the sector for the masses are not recognised or appreciated by the government. “Where else”, as one man said to us, “do people put their lives on the line for a job?” They are not forced to stay. They can opt to work in less risky, if lower- paying, locations.

Small-scale mining was made illegal by the Mining Law of 2009, requiring a formal permit from Jakarta’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM). But Jakarta is a long way from these mining sites. Moreover, the numerous police, military, and other government officials using the informal power of their office/positions to extort miners, shopkeepers, and other business people serving the mining community have effectively created underground governing and taxation structures that illegally benefit them. Regulation and formal taxation would  benefit the government if small scale mining were decriminalised.  As individuals, however, these government actors are not interested in seeing this happen. As a result of these complex relationships, mining sites and miners such as those depicted here are likely to remain part of Indonesia’s rural landscapes.

Though they ‘busted’ in this last contract period, Bang Adam was optimistic that in the next contract period or sooner they would find more gold–before encroaching oil palm companies fill in the massive swamp pits with their industrial-scale ‘excavator’ shovels. They have already begun doing so, putting piles of tailings back into the pits and hiding these 20 years of gold mining under thousands of oil palm trees. The trees thrive, but it is unclear whether the palm fruits will absorb mercury, diesel oil, and gasoline from the soils that now support them. No one, in any case, is asking.

Five years from now, your favourite bananas fried in palm oil might be glowing more brightly.

Nancy Lee Peluso is the Henry J Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. This article and accompanying photo essay (in the player above) are part of a current book project focusing on agrarian transformations and small scale gold mining in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province. 

She will give the keynote speech at the Australian National University’s 2015 Indonesia Update Conference, Land and Development in Indonesia: Searching for the People’s Sovereignty.