The presence of PT. Newmont Nusa Tenggara – a tributary company of Newmont Mining Corporation – at West Nusa Tenggara province has significantly changed the common and peacefull life of native inhabitants. Promising welfare of gold sparkling is utilized by the company as a lullaby to lull the people of the lowest human resources rating province of Indonesia, so they careless toward the enormous threats that waiting behind.

As we acknowledge, mining is an extremely high stakes game for public policy and finance markets. It jeopardizes both communities and ecosystems. Mining industry always highlights its adequacy to generate wealth and its engineering prowess, but its accountability for the massive accumulation of risks, costs and liabilities has never been addressed. Its wealth has been abused to control and to dominate public policy and public forum in order to prevent any serious challenge to the unsustainable status quo.

The very real benefaction of mining includes death pool areas of abandoned mines, billions of dollars of restoration liability for acid mine drainage contamination, extensive disruption of critical habitat areas, profound social impacts in many mining communities, and the boom and bust upheaval of local economies.

Despite considerable corporate and government public relation campaign, the sustainability promises of 'multi-stakeholder' agreements have not materialized for the public interest. The results are industry-dominated policy regimes, dwindling regulatory enforcement, ongoing ecological impacts, and continued political pressure for communities to expose themselves to these risks without adequate information, safeguards or compensation.

Communities, particularly in remote areas such as those of surrounding Batu Hijau project, are often faced with the dilemma of weighing promises and short-term benefits against the potential for long-term, high-cost impacts. Without adequate support for local communities, this dilemma plays to the advantage of the transient interests of the mining industry, not to community sustainability.

The ability of most communities to respond effectively to mining pressures and threats has been limited by the wealthy of mining companies. We perceive that political and mass media leverage spawned by mining companies through their campaigns are successful in diminishing a significant range of opportunities for public participation in decision-making processes. The lack of independent experts and honest politicians combined with the massive political pressure associated with the multi-million dollar promises path the way to irresponsible practice of a mining project.

In response to these daunting political forces, activists from a broad range of sectors and regions have worked towards the establishment of an organization to work solely to watch over PT. Newmont Nusa Tenggara. Strategically, targeted research, education, advocacy and litigation are needed to affect both the practices of the mining company and the public policy to offer safeguards for individuals, communities and ecosystems.