Last modified: 2019-09-30
Abstract
In Indonesia, mining and quarrying sector is one of the most important sector in the economy. However, it can also bring a negative consequences on the environment. One of the cases can be found in East Kalimantan. As one of the most important sector in East Kalimantan, with a lot of coal mining spread across province, mining and quarrying is not just producing output for the province, but eventually it also creating many environmental problems. Lower quality of water, as well as flood, drought, and erosion of fertile soil layer are some examples of problems which caused by the mining and quarrying activities in East Kalimantan. Those problems are hampering our effort from achieving some of SDGs goals which related to environmental sustainability.
This circumstance motivates us to see how the expansion of mining and quarrying sector affecting the sustainability of environment in Indonesia. To see the association between mining and quarrying activities with environmental pollution in Indonesia, we apply Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression using pooled district level data on three different periods, which are 2008, 2011, and 2014. We use real gross domestic product (real GDP) on mining and quarrying sector to gauge the extent of mining and quarrying activities and information from Potensi Desa (Podes) dataset to identify environmental problem which related to air, land, as well as water. Our estimation shows that an increase of GDP on mining and quarrying sector is associated with higher spread of environmental problems in Indonesia which consist of air, land, and water pollution. This study provides an important implication: More well-organized mining and quarrying activities is important to avoid any further environmental problems.