Been a week or so since I've posted anything from there, but not because nothing happened- just because the sheer amount of Indonesian news about various disasters, natural and man made is overwhelming, and I didn't set out to make a blog called Lexacat's Guide To The Doom In Indonesia, did I.
Right.
In one of the most mind-bending stories, the mud continues to flow (it's been about a year now) at a site where a mining company drilled right down into what is called a 'mud volcano', setting off epic landslides and mudflows that have killed people and swallowed towns whole. The toxic stew (now mixed right up with mining byproducts- notoriously toxic slagheaps, etc) was headed for the ocean, last time I wrote about it. Biologists, understandably, are worried about what will happen to the ocean's ecosystem when tons of hot, toxic mud pour in, but people really want the mud to stop drowning their villages, and I guess I can see their point to. "Geologists fear the technology may not exist to stop the eruption, saying mud could flow for years or even centuries _ or stop on its own at any time." LINK
Well, anyway, in an update on that nightmare, the nations Welfare minister, a fellow with family ties to the mining company, claims that it was all natural, and that the $425 million in compensation the company has been ordered to pay is wrong, as it wasn't their fault. Right. Fox guarding the freaking henhouse, as usual. LINK
Also, some entrepenerial Indonesians are growing coffee beans in the protected habitats of 3 of the most endangered species in Asia. "Coffee beans exported to the West are being illegally grown inside an Indonesian national park, threatening the habitat of endangered tigers, elephants and rhinos, the WWF said Wednesday.
"If this trend of clearing park land for coffee isn't halted, the rhinos and tigers will be locally extinct in less than a decade," Nazir Foead, WWF-Indonesia's Director of Policy and Corporate Engagement, said in a statement.
"We think even the world's most committed coffee drinkers will find this an unacceptable price to pay for their daily caffeine buzz." LINK
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