Strengthening Governance and Law Enforcement in the Mineral and Coal Mining Sector Based on Land-Use and Forests in Indonesia

The mineral and coal mining sector contributes significantly to deforestation and land degradation. TreeMap (2024) records 721,000 hectares of forest lost to mining between 2001 and 2023, including 150,000 hectares of high-carbon primary forest. East Kalimantan, holding 38% of Indonesia’s coal reserves, has 1.5 million hectares of mining concessions overlapping 29% of forest ecosystems.

The same pattern appears in the Nusantara Capital City (IKN) area. Of roughly 250,000 hectares, mines — dominated by coal — cover 17,929.58 hectares, of which 3,794.6 hectares are identified as illegal. The government plans to restore 65 percent of the IKN area as tropical rainforest and a carbon-free forest city by 2045.

From 2014 to 2019, PWYP Indonesia’s work with SETAPAK-II helped reduce non-Clean and Clear mining permits, increase state revenues, and map problems in reclamation policy. Mining remains a driver of deforestation, public participation in energy-transition policy is weak, and civil society monitoring of the sector is thinner than it was during GNPSDA.