This article was taken from the March 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Rebo, a fishing village on the east coast of the indonesian island of Bangka, starts to stir at eight o'clock one October morning.
Like any other day, dozens of ragtag young men are gathering around the small harbour, each of them carrying a jerrycan of fuel and some lunch. In the tropical sun they gaze at the horizon, waiting for the small fishing boat that will lead them to a series of wooden pontoons, a few hundred metres from the shore. But these men aren't after fish. Something much more precious lies at the bottom of the sea, something they are ready to die for: a metal that has become one of the most valuable in the world.
Slightly bigger than Cyprus, Bangka, which lies off the coast of Sumatra, provides around 30 per cent of the world's tin, a metal used in a vast array of products from components for cars to food cans and electronic goods. Fifty-two per cent of it is used as solder, holding together the circuit boards and components of products such as smartphones, laptops and tablets. In 2013, smartphone and tablet shipments were expected to surpass one billion and 184 million units respectively (40 per cent and 53.4 per cent year-on-year growth, according to the International Data Corporation), meaning that the price of tin has skyrocketed over the past decade from $5 (£3) per kilogram to more than $23 (£14).
Many of the world's producers of smartphones -- Samsung, BlackBerry, LG, Motorola, Nokia and Sony -- have acknowledged the use of Bangkanese tin in their supply chain.
And this might be just the tip of the iceberg. According to Monique Lempers, senior programme manager for electronics for Dutch organisation the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), which is currently conducting a study on tin mining in Bangka, "As Indonesia is the biggest supplier of tin worldwide, there is a high chance that its tin is sourced by suppliers from all major electronics companies." But while Bangka, which has a population of 1.25 million, is helping to satisfy the global hunger for electronic products, mining of the tin is having a devastating effect on its environment and people.
With global demand for tin exceeding supply, Bangka has become a gigantic, open mine that extends both on and offshore. After 13 years of indiscriminate mining, its once-pristine tropical forests are now scarred with thousands of Moon-like craters contaminated with acidic water and heavy metals. After the industry was liberalised in 2001 and the authorities offered mining and smelting licences to local entrepreneurs, the island has been blighted by tens of thousands of what are known as "informal miners", a term that can refer to anybody from pensioners to housewives, and former fishermen to children.
According to the Mining and Energy Department of the local provincial government, 30 to 40 per cent of Bangka's population is active in mining. Some of the miners operate in private, licensed concessions, but the vast majority work on illegal sites all over the island, many of which are in the middle of protected forests.
Here, child labour, work-related injuries and fatal accidents are commonplace. After reaching the offshore platforms, the men -- all of whom are mining illegally -- quickly set to work. Three of them dive into the brown, muddy pool created by the makeshift pontoons -- the colour of the water is in stark contrast to the turquoise of the sea surrounding Bangka. Every 30 minutes, the trio emerges for a ten-minute-break, before diving eight metres below the surface again. Each of them carries a big plastic tube connected to a diesel-propelled pump which sucks tin ore from the seabed as if it were a huge vacuum cleaner. Another plastic hose connected to a funnel on the surface and powered by the same engine allows them to breathe by channelling oxygen down.
Other suction pipes are operated from the decks of the pontoons, where workers pound the seabed with bamboo sticks to stir the sand and expose the ore. The heavier tin ore is deposited on the wooden platform, and the sand is washed into the sea. Each pontoon can collect 15 kilograms of ore per day. Depending on the global price of tin, each miner can earn around £9 per day, double the average pay of a farm labourer. But this natural resource bonanza comes at a price, especially for those who mine offshore.
"Divers are the ones who risk most," says Huwei Liong, 31, struggling to make himself heard over the deafening pumps around him. The heat above water is unbearable and rendered worse by blasts of throat-itching exhaust smokes. After just 30 minutes of work the men on the pontoons -- some of whom are as young as 14 -- are soaked in sweat, sea water and mud. The conditions are just as harsh beneath the water: the pits created by drawing ore from the seabed are deep and can easily collapse, burying the divers under metres of sand. Liong knows this all too well: now a pontoon owner, he survived several landslides when he was a diver. "You get buried suddenly, there's no way to prevent it," he says. According to Walhi, a local environmental association, 53 miners died in Bangka last year.
Many illegal miners play a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with the police. Malasari Amirudin, 33, and her daughter Novi Akher, 15, are sitting in their modest house in Batako, together with two other women miners. The previous evening, police raided the onshore mine they were working in, shutting it down. Once they excavate a pit, miners shower the ground with large water pipes. The mud is then pumped through plastic hoses out of the pit and into wooden basins where the ore is separated using a constant flow of water.
Amirudin and her daughter have just come from Pangkal Pinang, the capital of Bangka, to collect scraps of tin that have fallen from other people's washing lines, a job that can earn them around £12.50 per day. Like most of the other miners, they have no idea what the tin they collect is used for. When showed an iPhone, they are in awe. "We should ask for more money," jokes Amirudin.
The majority of the depleted pits are left abandoned. The authorities require licensed mining companies to clean up the land they have mined by covering the holes and planting new vegetation, but it's impossible to enforce these rules when it comes to illegal miners. A drive through the island exposes enormous chunks of mined land that have been deserted, although a few have been converted into palm plantations. The state-run tin company, PT Timah, the biggest exporter of tin in the world, maintains that many informal miners re-enter areas already reconciled by the company. While this is partly true, Ismed Inonu, vice-rector of Bangka Belitung University and an expert on environment and agriculture, says the legal mining companies are equally responsible. "One of the causes of environmental destruction here is the postponement of reclamation," he says. "It should have been done by the companies, and the government should have given sanctions [to the ones that don't comply]."
Offshore, the environmental situation is worse. Hundreds of makeshift pontoons operate alongside a fleet of 52 dredgers and other ships from PT Timah and other companies that constantly draw tin ore from the seabed and throw the residual waste back into the water. "Bangka has changed a lot since I was a kid," says Liong, the pontoon owner, sitting beside a Confucian temple onshore. "Ten years ago, the place where we are now was all sea." Locals say that the coastline in Rebo has been transformed from open sea into a series of small gulfs that have been created by the sand dumped by dredgers. According to a recent study by the University of Bangka Belitung, sand tailing -- the dumping of non-valuable materials such as sand by the dredgers -- has killed 30 to 60 per cent of the local coral reef, forcing fish to move away from the coast and harming the tourism industry. The local government has no provision for any sea reclamation, despite the fact that mining companies are increasingly focusing on offshore mining in deeper waters in order to avoid competing with illegal miners who, lacking proper equipment, can only operate close to the coastline. According to Inonu, it will take at least 20 years for the coral to regenerate, provided it is not further damaged.
Local fishermen are the ones suffering the most from sea pollution, according to 41-year-old Tsung Ling Xiao. "Fourteen years ago I could fish within four miles [6.5km] of the coast," he says, sitting in his two-storey house in Rebo. "Now, I have to throw my nets as far as 17 miles [27km]." Apart from the environmental impact, Xiao has another reason to dislike mining: six years ago, his 32-year-old brother Tsung Ling Fang was caught in a landslide while he was working in a mine he had opened just 300 metres from Xiao's house. When the mine collapsed, Fang and two fellow miners were buried in a pile of rubble. The other two survived, but Fang didn't make it. Although the land was sold shortly after the accident, the memories will always haunt his brother.
The relationship between Bangka and tin dates back to the 17th century when Dutch colonialists first imported Chinese labourers to extract the metal in 1814. Today, their descendants inhabit many of the villages scattered around the island. "Every Chinese village in Bangka used to be a mining area," reveals Bambang Yusman, 36, a local businessman whose ancestors arrived on the island from China 300 years ago. Today, Yusman personifies Bangka's contradictions: the owner of a beach resort near the town of Sungailiat, he also runs one of the biggest concessions for PT Timah. Yusman campaigned against the environmental destruction caused by offshore mining, but isn't too concerned about the thousands of open pits on the island. "Some families destroy their houses just to search for tin below them," he says. "You can't separate tin from Bangka. The locals have this faith that nature will somehow heal itself." There is a cruel irony to the fact that, while tin mining has provided a livelihood for thousands of families, it is also jeopardising the island's future. "Mining is harmful," complains Xiao. "It has destroyed coral reefs, fishing breeds and mangroves."
The authorities periodically crack down on illegal mining, but there are also allegations that the armed forces profiteer from the trade: during WIRED's visit, police and navy officers were spotted in Rebo near the tin weighing area where the miners bring the ore collected during the day. Many miners claim that the officers are there to collect bribes. Asram Somat is more open about the alleged corruption. A friendly 30-year-old from the village of Pemali, Somat is one of several middlemen buying tin from illegal miners through an array of private collectors. He processes and sells around three tonnes of tin concentrate per week to independent smelters, at an average price of £10 per kilo. Despite being licensed, Somat says he pays around £60 a month to the police. "Sometimes officers visit me and ask for more, aside of the monthly pay," he says.
Forty-odd smelting companies operate in Bangka, producing 90 per cent of Indonesia's tin. Ninety-five per cent of it is sold to China, Europe or Asia. Tracing its origin is virtually impossible.
PT Timah accuses independent smelters of buying tin from illegal miners: according to the company data, despite holding more than 90 per cent of tin mining concessions in Indonesia, PT Timah only produced around 28,000 tonnes of tin in 2012, while private companies produced 70,000 tonnes -- a discrepancy the company justifies with the alleged rampant use of illegally mined tin from the independent smelters. "Some companies don't even have mining areas, but they can export tin. This is totally illegal," says Agung Nugroho, PT Timah's corporate secretary. Private companies retort that PT Timah itself buys illegal tin (an allegation made to WIRED by a PT Timah concessor, who preferred to remain anonymous) and that the distinction between legal and illegal makes little sense. PT Timah denies any wrongdoing. "When 40 per cent of the population is involved in mining, how can you say that tin is illegal?" says an independent smelter who asked not to be named.
The indonesian government has implemented new regulations in an attempt to rein in the market: since August 2013, smelting companies are not allowed to sell tin directly to clients abroad; they will instead have to go through a centralised stock exchange in Jakarta. The move -- which aims to stabilise market prices and stop companies from exporting uncertified tin -- has been fiercely contested by most of the independent companies, which accuse the government and PT Timah of trying to monopolise the market by cutting competitors out. The new regulation has so far forced half of the smelting companies in Bangka to stop working, but not every-one is convinced of its efficacy. Just like in the past, locals might respond to the new regulation by increasing smuggling to neighbouring countries, a practice that, according to PT Timah, already deprives Indonesia of tens of thousands tonnes of tin every year.
Given the difficulty of regulating the tin market, environmental group Friends of the Earth launched a campaign in 2012 demanding that the major mobile-phone manufacturers take responsibility for the environmental situation in Bangka and spearheaded a campaign to improve transparency in the supply chain. It's a tall order: as a Nokia spokesperson explained to WIRED, companies "are usually four to eight supply-chain-actor layers removed from mining activities.
This makes traceability very challenging. The further you are from the source, the tougher it is to exert influence."
However, after months of intense campaign, six companies (BlackBerry, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony) have acknowledged the use of Bangkanese tin in their supply chain.
Apple, the second-biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world after Samsung, won't publicly disclose if the tin its suppliers use originates from Bangka, but the company has initiated a working group to assess tin production in the island within the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), an organisation of electronics companies whose aim is to improve social and environmental responsibility in the global supply chain. The other participating companies are BlackBerry, LG, Philips, Samsung and Sony.
Convened by the IDH, the Indonesia Tin Working Group also includes Friends of the Earth, together with the International Tin Research Institute, which represents the tin industry. The working group is assessing the situation of the tin sector in Bangka through a study, the purpose of which, according to Monique Lempers from the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative (Initiatief Duurzame Handel -- IDH), is "to inform the IDH Tin Working Group on how to best move forward, in terms of finding an appropriate, meaningful industry response to sustainability challenges in tin mining in Bangka." But serious concerns remain: as the EICC is a voluntary organisation, the companies involved will not be compelled to follow any of the findings or recommendations the working group might issue. Lempers concedes that not finding a meaningful way to contribute is also a possible outcome. Moreover, the effectiveness of such an initiative would be significantly hampered, should not all the companies that source tin from Bangka participate.
Back on the island, local authorities openly admit that illegal mining will be difficult to eradicate. "It will be impossible to stop it in the short term. We first need to create employment for the people, so that they can feed their children," explains Yan Megawandi, head of the planning department in the provincial government. He admits that, constrained by a limited budget, it will be difficult to address the environmental damage caused by mining in recent years. "We need assistance," he says. "I think it is fair to ask it to those who have benefited from our tin. We don't ask necessarily for money, but for technology, training and assistance to make our society more environmentally friendly. We have limited human resources."
Inonu issues a gloomier warning for the future of the once-beautiful island. "The impact of the destruction we are seeing now will last decades, if not centuries," he predicts. "Some species of fauna are already disappearing, as well as some high-quality wood forest plants. If action is not taken now, something really bad will happen to this land."
Matteo Fagotto is a journalist focusing on war reporting and social issues throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
