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From the shores of Bangka Island in Indonesia, miners like Hendra take boats out to shore every day to a fleet of rough wooden pontoons equipped for profitable tin deposits to dredge the seabed.
Indonesia is the largest exporter of tin from food packaging to electronics and currently uses green technologies.
But much of the land in the Bangka-Belitung mining center has been exploited, with parts of the islands off the south-east coast of Sumatra being huge and very acidic craters like the lunar landscape, which looks like a turquoise lake.
The miners are going to sea.
“On earth, our income is declining. There are no more reserves, ”said Hendra, 51, who went to work in marine tin mining about a year ago after spending a decade in the industry.
“In the ocean, there are many more reserves.”
Often wrapped around submarine tin joints, sharp pontoon camps emit feathers of black smoke that are so loud from diesel generators that workers use hand gestures to communicate.
Hendra, which uses a name similar to many Indonesians, uses six pontoons, each made up of three or four workers, with pipes that can be up to 20 meters (66 feet) long to absorb sand from the seabed.
The pumping of mixed water and sand passes through the bed of plastic covers that trap the bright black sand with mineral tin.
Hendra is one of the artisanal miners collaborating with PT Timah to exploit the state’s mining concessions.
Miners are paid between 70,000 and 80,000 rupees ($ 4.90 and $ 5.60) per pound of tin sand they pump, and a pontoon typically produces about 50kg a day, Hendra said.
Timah is being produced from the sea. Company data show that the proven reserve of tin on land was 16,399 tonnes last year, compared to 265,913 tonnes at sea.
The huge expansion, along with the reporting of illegal miners managing sea deposits, has heightened tensions with fishermen, who have said their catches have fallen since they have been constantly entering fishing grounds since 2014.
Fisherman Apriadi Anwar said that in the past, his family earned enough to pay his two younger siblings to go to college, but in recent years, they have left almost no trace.
“Even though I go to college, it’s hard to buy food today,” said Apriadi, 45, who lives in Batu Perahu village.
Apriadi said fishing nets could be mixed into sea mining equipment as they drag the seabed to find mineral seams that have polluted the clean water of yesteryear.
“The fish are dwindling because the coral they produce is covered in mining mud,” he added.
Walhi, an Indonesian environmental group, has been campaigning to stop mining at sea, especially on the west coast of Bangka, where mangroves are relatively well preserved.
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