China-backed mine in Sumatran seismic hotspot rings safety alarms
news.mongabay.com
JAKARTA — Protests are mounting in Indonesia against a China-backed zinc and lead mine being developed on the island of Sumatra in defiance of opposition from local communities. On June 11, protesters from communities that would be affected by the mine in Dairi district demonstrated outside the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta. They demanded the Chinese […]

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  • Communities in Indonesia’s Dairi district continue to protest a zinc and lead mine being developed by a Chinese-backed company.
  • They warn the PT Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM) mine poses unacceptable risks to human life and the environment, given the potential for its waste dam to collapse in the earthquake-prone region.
  • There are 11 villages located around or downstream of the proposed tailings dam, making the prospect of its collapse potentially disastrous. Some homes and houses of worship lie less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the dam, while an entire village of 2,010 people, called Pandiangan, is just 1.8 km (1.1 mi) from the dam.
  • This would make the project illegal if it was built in China, since that country’s regulations prohibit the construction of a tailings dam within a kilometer of a populated area, according to Emerman.
  • These concerns are borne out in a series of independent analyses of the project’s environmental impact assessment, which experts say fails to live up to the standards the developers claim to follow.
  • Despite the questions over the assessment, the Indonesian government has issued environmental approval for the project, which local communities are now challenging at the Supreme Court.