The author uses North Sumatra’s Dairi Prima Mineral zinc-lead project as a warning: a high-grade deposit found in the late 1990s sits in a seismic zone, and critics say a planned tailings dam could put downstream villages at risk if it failed.

Sumatra’s mining past is described as boom-and-bust (few lasting profits; closures from grades, water, prices, rules). Dairi itself hit forestry limits, a 2013 price slump, and a domestic-processing rule before a 2017 permit and a Chinese firm’s 51% stake. The piece asks why the public should accept long-lived waste risk for short-lived economics.

The argument: geological wealth does not mean every deposit should be mined. Benefits and disaster risk fall on different people. Indonesia can still mine, the author says, while rejecting some sites, sharing independent technical data, and setting rules for cumulative risk and long-term liability.

The story of the Dairi Prima Mineral project in North Sumatra is a warning about what happens when geological opportunity is allowed to outrun disaster preparedness.

Sumatra is exceptionally rich in mineral resources. The island’s rugged Barisan Mountains (Bukit Barisan) run along its western side and are intersected by the major Sumatra Fault Zone. Its geology hosts a remarkable variety of mineral deposits, including gold, copper, lead, zinc and other metals.

Recent research traces mining activity back to prehistoric times, through the Dutch colonial period and into the modern era. Since mid-1960s, when Indonesia opened a new era of foreign investment and mining under the Law Number 1 Year 1967 concerning Foreign Capital Investment (often referred to simply as the Foreign Investment Law), exploration has continued in waves, driven in large part by commodity prices and investment conditions.

It tells us that the pressure to extract mineral wealth is not going away, nor should it necessarily. Indonesia........

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