PADANG, Indonesia — The government of West Sumatra plans to move forward with a legal pathway for up to 300 small mines operating illegally in the heavily forested province, joining several other devolved governments grappling with how to treat the vast number of unlicensed mines operating across Indonesia. “Environmental damage brings long-term problems, therefore we can’t stay silent,” West Sumatra Governor Mahyeldi Ansarullah said in a statement. If approved by Indonesia’s mining and energy ministry, West Sumatra could add substantially to the total number of “community mining zones” already created by the government to date. A crucial distinction is that this deregulation initiative is expanding on paper but remains incipient in practice. By 2024, Indonesia had agreed to 1,215 of these Wilayah Pertambangan Rakyat mining zones in 19 of the country’s 38 provinces, with the zones applying to extraction of commodities like gold and sand. Crucially, however, the government has so far awarded only a handful of the practical permits that actually allow a mine to operate. The development in West Sumatra takes place amid a nationwide crackdown by a military-led forestry task force, which has seized millions of hectares of unlicensed forest operations, shifting its focus from plantations in 2025 to mining in 2026. The government of West Sumatra in 2025 issued calls for a crackdown on illegal mining, but a change in tactics is now underway, recent statements by Mahyeldi indicate. “Regulations must be followed,” the governor added. “But we also have to prepare solutions in order for…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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