A Harita Group company violates mining permits in Indonesia

A local NGO reported that a Harita group mining company in West Kalimantan, Indonesia has been mining outside its allotted land.

Forest Monitoring Volunteers of Borneo (RPHK) found in the their investigation that the P.T Karya Utama Tambang Jaya is using 78 hectares of land for their operations even though they have no jurisdiction on that land.

The company already owns permits to mine across 8,878 hectares of land. Even though the area of violation is small, this is not an isolated event.

The Department of Mines and Energy in West Kalimantan statistics suggests, 6.4 million hectares of West Kalimantan province has been allotted for the purpose of mining and extraction effective as of June 2014. "Because this island has become the production center for mining products and national energy stores, the expansion of mining and extraction of minerals is rapidly increasing," said Syamsul Averroes, spokesman for RPHK. Stronger governance and regulations are required to protect the area, they say.

The company in question here is a PT. Cita Mineral Investindo Tbk subsidiary, a holding of Jakarta based Harita Group. Harita owns 26 mining permits in West Kalimantan, according to the Jakarta Globe. The mining area covers nearly 350,000 hectares of land with proven bauxite reserves of 700 million tons.