The Process of People Gold Mining in Paningkaban Village Banyumas Indonesia

¹ Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto - Indonesia
² Doctoral Program of Environmental Sciences, School of Postgraduate Studies, Diponegoro University, Semarang - Indonesia
³ Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Diponegoro University, Semarang - Indonesia
⁴ Faculty of Animal, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto - Indonesia
⁵ Geology Department of Technic Faculty, Diponegoro University, Semarang - Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: muslihudin1963@yahoo.com

Abstract

Gold mining in Paningkaban Banyumas conducted by the community is called the People gold mining. At the beginning, many miners from outside the region have involved and transferred of method, technic and knowledge about gold mining to local people. The aim of the study is to identify the existing process of public gold mining. The method of the study is qualitative by using observation and interview. The result showed that the mining process are: 1. Determining the location of mining well; in this determination there are two references; rational and intuition 2. Mining; at this stage, a deep well is drawn about 50-100 meters that leads vertically and horizontally. It is the most high-risk stage because of work accidents that occurred and potentially environment destruction. 3. Pulverization; this stage is classified as the lowest level of difficulty and risk, therefore in this work many woman included. 4. Rolling; in this stage involves enough technology, electrical mechanic and energy with the dynamo and using mercury that potentially contaminate environment. 5. Filtering; this stage is a quite risky because the workers contact directly with mercury. 6. Burning; is the shortest process to separate mercury with gold grains. 7. Sales to local buyer guided by the international gold market in every Thursday.