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span class="inline inline-left">The scene: Traveling across the mined landscape, this truck is one of hundreds that daily ferry illegally harvested volcanic material from the Batur geopark in Bangli regency, Bali.Against a backdrop of lava shards and volcanic sand, 25-year-old Putu Bumi (not her real name) stands, on her hip a baby daughter, at her knee a son toddles.

Dusty and tired, Putu is the human face of Mount Batur geopark’s illegal miners. Dirt poor, she, her husband, a brother and her father-in-law daily chisel and sledgehammer the black lava of the park, one truckload at a time.

“We’ve been working at the stone for three years selling the lava to the truck drivers. We live here in a bamboo house,” says Putu, waving across the arid moonscape of Batur’s caldera.

“We can mine a truckload a day. That pays us Rp 100,000 to Rp 120,000 [US$10 to $12]. We know we are not allowed to take the stone, but we have to eat – that’s the important thing – that we can eat,” says Putu of the Rp 25,000 each person in her mining team nets daily.

Her team is not alone in the geopark, part of the national estate and touted as a world heritage zone to UNESCO. Like prairie dogs in America’s grasslands, miners’ heads pop up from the natural gullies of lava across the park; trucks have forged tracks to these mines across the fragile system, shattering the black lava and causing erosion streams through the underlying sands.

Around 400 truckfuls of sand and lava are illegally mined every day from the park, a nonstop procession of heavy vehicles snaking up the steep caldera with lava to be sold to building sites.

A truckful of lava sells for around Rp 750,000, multiply this by 400 over 365 days and the math suggests this industry could be worth as much a Rp 1 trillion per annum – potentially a million dollar industry trading in stolen goods.

But not all of the trucks are carrying illegally harvested volcanic material. On the exterior borders of the geopark, private land has also opened up for legal mining, with businesses paying taxes and with licensed miners.

At the start of their climb out of Batur’s caldera, these trucks pass a Bangli regency checkpoint in Kedisan village where tolls are collected; however, there is no way of knowing which trucks carry legally harvested material, says Bangli Regent Made Gianyar.

On reaching the peak of the caldera, the trucks also pass a Department of Natural Resources post. Neither the regency toll collectors nor Department of Natural Resources staff halt the never-ending stream of trucks to check documentation on the origins of the volcanic material.

Department of Natural Resources staffer Nyoman Sugama has been working this post for just over a year. “There are laws protecting the geopark, that people are not allowed to take material, but it’s difficult to enforce because these people need to make a living. In the past [conservation officers] have stopped drivers to check paperwork, to find out who owns the trucks. We’ve done that three times, but speaking frankly we only have three staff here and one motorbike to cover more than 2,500 hectares. We are afraid if we try to take on the truck drivers [to halt illegal mining], we could be encircled. We need more people if we are going to solve the problem of illegal mining,” says Sugama of the virtually impossible task his team has been set.

“Obviously, I am deeply concerned at this environmental destruction. If people keep taking material from the geopark, clearly it will be destroyed,” Sugama says.

There is a sad irony in this daily destruction of the Batur geopark.

Opposite Sugama’s office stands the geopark’s volcanic museum: a huge building laden with all sorts of computer gadgets, a handful of quartz and obsidian examples of volcanic material along with the basalt lava from Batur, which last erupted in 2000. Photographs of the park show dense concentrations of this basalt lava, but just down the mountain at the actual site the landscape is a wasteland of lava shards, all that remains of the documented frozen lava flow. There are no visitors at the museum, dust lies on exhibits, paint is peeling off walls, a scan of the visitors book suggests it has been days since the last visitor. Staff sit with mobile phones in hand looking bored.

Gede Mangun from nearby Songan is horrified at the ongoing destruction. Mangun who is well-known in the Batur area for his welfare work says he understands why villagers mine the geopark, but that alternative employment must be created before the park is lost forever.

“I really worry about how nature is being ruined by the taking of this [volcanic] material. I am proud we have this volcanic museum, it’s the only one in Bali, but I am really worried that all the people are doing good research and work in the museum while, in fact, all the lava is being lost. I understand the people need to eat, but programs on that issue are what the government has to do for the people,” says Mangun who later met with Gianyar.

Prohibitions: Rusted out, this sign banning the mining of sand and lava at the Batur geopark stands on ground already mined and left barren.On hearing of the destruction within a particularly fragile section of the park, Gianyar immediately swung into action, calling on staff to police the area.

To Mangun, it was evident that the Bangli regent, just 12 months into his role, was serious about environmental protection.

The regent is currently developing an alternative employment program for illegal miners to ensure they can switch from mining to employment without going hungry in the process. The regent said he is also aiming to value-add to the basalt lava of Batur, creating specific zones in the park that can be mined for stone that can be carved into statues or for the creation of other souvenirs. Training in partnership with the Department of Industry begins in 2012, says Gianyar.

“Currently the lava is harvested and sold cheaply to the building industry. We want to change that so just a few stones are harvested from specific zones [in the geopark] and value-added as souvenirs so they are sold at a much higher price,” says Gianyar, who is currently having dozens of signs warning of harsh penalties for illegal mining placed throughout the park.

“We have to make the people understand that if they continue to mine, they will go hungry in the future as there will be nothing left,” says Gianyar, who is for the moment stuck between a rock and a hard place in the delicate balancing act between conservation and employment.