Investors Involved, Owners Of Customary Rights In West Papua Gold Mine Urged To Ask For Government Control Assistance

Seblon Mandacan, one of the customary owners of gold mining land in Wasirawi village (ANTARA)

PAPUA - Gold mining activities in Wasirawi village, Masni district, Manokwari District, West Papua, are still running outside the control of the government and related institutions.

Seblon Mandacan, one of the owners of Ulayat rights (customary rights) at the Wasirawi gold mining site, revealed that several irregularities were related to mining activities that were outside the government's control.

Owners of customary rights have taken steps to manage gold potential independently through community cooperatives, but have been unable to stem the rise of investors and workers who are struggling to get to the location.

"There is no forum that coordinates mining activities in Wasirawi, there are many entrances without going through government control, or traditional institutions to control the negative impact of mining activities that have not been officially licensed", said Seblon Mandacan in Manokwari as quoted by Antara on Monday, 10 January.

Apart from not being controlled, the facts about Wasirawi's gold mining activities using heavy equipment are excavators, which now have hundreds of units in that location.

"More than 100 excavators are at the gold mining site in Wasirawi with more than 3,000 workers, so far they are running safely without any action by the authorities", said Mandacan.

Seblon Mandacan, who is also the chairman of the Jaya Putra Manted Mandiri Cooperative, or a community cooperative engaged in providing transportation services to the Wasirari mine site, urged the government and cultural institutions to immediately organize and control.

"I myself have a cooperative that is engaged in providing transportation services to mining sites, but I see too much fraud there so that we as Ulayat rights owners feel disadvantaged", he said.

He urged the Manokwari district government, provincial government, and cultural institutions in the area to take steps to collect data and control illegal workers so that these activities do not benefit the people involved as defenders.

"The government and cultural institutions of West Papua have the authority in the Special Autonomy Law to regulate their natural resources so that they are managed independently through community cooperatives, don't let it continue because there has been a massive confiscation of our customary lands", he said.

Separately throughout 2021, the West Papua Regional Police and the law enforcement sector of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in the West Papua region did not touch the potential for environmental crimes from Wasirawi gold mining activities.

West Papua Police Chief, Inspector General Tornagogo Sihombing, in his late 2021 release only reported 7 prominent cases without touching illegal gold mining activities in the West Papua region.