Environmental impacts due to unlicensed gold mining: Poboya, Central Sulawesi case study

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the impact of the mining site on biological, physical-chemical, and social aspects in Poboya. The method used to analyze the impact of mining is quantitative analysis on biology, physical-chemical, and social aspects. The results show that the impact of mining in this study site has changed the biology, physical-chemical, and social community aspects. The results of forest vegetation analysis show that there had been a loss of tree-level plants and poles on the post-mining land. Besides, there had been a loss of Ficus sp. plantation on the post-mining land, which was a plant with the highest INP. The result of diversity index analysis of Poboya River plankton showed that in the upstream part falls to a medium polluted category that was in the range of 1.0-1.5, while on the upstream falls in the category of heavy pollution that was in the range 1.0-1.5<1.0. The plankton uniformity index (E) showed upstream and downstream fell in the stable category E>1. The result of dominance index analysis (D) showed that the type of plankton in the upstream area and that was D = 1. Physical-chemical changes seen from soil mercury contents indicate that the mercury content of the soil had exceeded the critical limits. In the land, the mercury content was 0.7784 ppm, while the area of mercury mixed plantation content and paddy fields were 0.9916 ppm and 1.1788 ppm, respectively. Moreover, it could be concluded that the social perception of the implementation of people mining policy was in a not good category.