Planting forests on coal mines

In Indonesia, an old coal mine was successfully renovated by the mineral mining company to plant forests.

According to daily newspaper Kompas (Indonesia), it is hard to imagine the lush green hills of acacia and melaleuca in the south of Sumatra island formerly a huge, barren coal mine, with deep holes. But after stopping mining in the early 1990s, PT Bukit Asam Mining Company had a strong investment plan for renovating this area.

Not far from the Air Laya mine, the view is completely opposite to a concave hole of 3,350 hectares and 110 meters deep. However, the surrounding area is very noticeable: each layer of coal is interspersed with red brown soil, each layer is 8 meters thick. This is the 'strategy' that PT Bukit Asam has applied decades ago at the old mine, now a green artificial forest area. The Kompas newspaper quoted Mr. Achmad Sudarto - a company leader, saying: 'From the beginning of the operation, we have' saved 'beside the top layers of the coal mine to be available later. reuse ' . After using this 'aside' land to fill the coal mine, PT Bukit Asam gave bio-fertilizers to 'activate' the area's fertility. Without a well-prepared plan, even a single grass cannot grow in very poor nutrient pits of the mine site 'expired'.

If there is a long-term land reclamation plan, coal mines
no longer the 'black spot' of the environment - (Photo: Le Figaro)

Mining is often bad for the environment, but if every company has a land reclamation plan, at least it will help 'bandage' the natural injury. Even in the case of artificial acacia-melaleuca hills of PT Bukit Asam, the situation becomes even better than before exploitation. Mr. Sudarto affirmed: 'When our company was not operating, this area was very barren, almost only weeds were growing but now it has become a good hill of trees'.

Many old mines of PT Bukit Asam are also in the process of improving the land for afforestation. Still a big name in the mining industry with a production of 12.9 million tons of coal in 2010, but the company has proven its 'green' business strategy and is rewarded by the Indonesian Ministry of the Environment. For many years, PT Bukit Asam has extracted 4,200 rupiah (nearly VND 10,000) in every ton of finished coal to finance its expensive land reclamation plans. As a result, the company's 'green' fund has accumulated about 200 billion rupiah (469 billion dong). PT Bukit Asam began to consider the renovation of used mines close together into a 5,394 ha man-made forest for people in the area to camp and tour in 2043.

The Air Laya mine reserves billions of tons of coal and the exploitation continues for more than 10 years. But PT Bukit Asam has planned to turn a hundred-meter-deep hole here into an artificial lake with the promise of 'not leaving the dead land'.

The environmental projects of PT Bukit Asam are truly bright spots in the context of the 'dark' side of the Indonesian coal mining industry. According to Kompas, there are still many companies in the country that ignore environmental issues, leaving a series of 'open wounds' on old mines. Things have become even more difficult to control when local authorities have been granted the right to license mining for private companies.