October 13, 2004

Creature from the gold lagoon

Locals claim a monster lurks in the waters of northern Sulawesi's Buyat Bay. Mining leviathan Newmont says that's nonsense. Eric Ellis investigates.


There’s a hint of Peter Garrett about Dr Chris Anderson as he strolls along northern Sulawesi’s Buyat Bay beach on Indonesian election day. Tall, engaging – he even sports a near-nude noggin – Anderson articulately condemns anyone who would pollute such an outwardly pristine environment. Which, to hear some of the Buyat Bay villagers tell it, happens to be the company Anderson works for. The world’s biggest gold miner, Denver-based Newmont Mining, stands accused by environmentalists and the Indonesian government of dumping mercury and cyanide-laden tailings from its nearby Minahasa gold mine into the bay, polluting fishing stocks and poisoning townsfolk.

As he denies Newmont is a polluter, it’s here again where Anderson resembles Midnight Oil’s former lead singer and one-time head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, turned ALP politician. Before joining Newmont, the US-born Anderson, was director of the South Australian Museum, which boasts one of Australia’s foremost Aboriginal art collections. But now Anderson is regarded by many in the environmental lobby as gamekeeper-turned-poacher, a fellow traveller with impeccable green credentials who went to the dark side as Newmont’s “community relations officer” attending – exploiting, as Newmont’s opponents put it – poor, fragile communities like this one in Sulawesi.

Whether Newmont has polluted Buyat Bay is under dispute. The World Health Organisation has declared the water clean and Newmont also touts expert testing, including from Australia’s CSIRO, that says pollution levels are well within internationally accepted levels. But the Indonesian police’s own laboratories say it’s five times that level. Newmont points to the plethora of illegal local miners, operating within the Minahasa concession, using extractive cyanide and sited next to a river that runs into the sea nearby.

The area’s three main communities are bitterly divided. The two biggest villages, Ratatotok and Kampung Buyat, are mostly Dutch-derived Protestant and seem prosperous. Many of their townsfolk work at the mine, or with the mine’s contractors. The Bulletin met five elders from the two communities and they were all enthusiastic about Newmont (though Indonesia’s environment lobby, WAHLI, claims they are conflicted because they are Newmont contractors). Newmont-built facilities – schools, clinics, roads – dot the two towns.

The smaller village, Buyat Beach, fronts the allegedly polluted bay and is mostly Muslim. Accused of neglecting this squatter village, Newmont recently built a public toilet here but it isn’t used. Newmont dumps its mine tailings from a submarine pipe a kilometre out to sea – some 2000 tonnes per day which it says have been safely diluted over the eight-year life of the mine. Noticeably poorer than their Christian neighbours, some of its townsfolk, many wearing “Newmonster” T-shirts provided by environmentalists, display lumps and rashes on their bodies which they claim come from eating fish caught in the polluted bay. Buyat Beach villagers sell their fish into the three wider communities but it’s only Buyat Beach residents who are complaining. As he walks along the sand meeting grumpy villagers, Anderson notes there are no dead fish on the beach or in the water. An outrigger is being prepared with nets for a fishing session.

Buyat Bay is pregnant with problems for allcomers; Newmont, Indonesia and the greens all claim to be protecting Buyat Bay’s 250 villagers, some of whom are suffering mysterious afflictions. With a market worth about $30bn, Newmont is cast by activists as the exploitative Goliath to the impoverished villagers’ collective David. But as lawsuit-skittish shareholders on Wall Street send the miner’s share price southward, Newmont feels that it has been “Mike Moored” by ambushing activists.

Buyat poses major issues for Indonesia, too. It needs foreign investors like Newmont, which has about $2bn staked in the country and acts as de facto government in remote places like Sulawesi, where it has built roads and hospitals and enriches locals. As Indonesia democratises, the anti-Newmont campaign has been a triumph for Indonesia’s homegrown and newly feisty environment lobby, which had next to no voice during the Soeharto kleptocracy.

Indonesian police have locked up five Newmont executives, including an American and an Australian, prompting strong protests from the US Embassy (but not from Australia) and Newmont. Now, with the international mining company in the process of closing its Minahasa facility, Newmont says it is “reviewing its commitment to Indonesia” in a developing case that is increasingly becoming a litmus test for the country.