Law Enforcement Against Unlicensed Gold Mining Activities in the Gorontalo Regency Area

Abstract

Unlicensed gold mining activities are acts that are contrary to the provisions of laws and regulations in the mining sector and have the potential to cause environmental damage, state economic losses, and disruptions to sustainable natural resource management. This study aims to analyze law enforcement of unlicensed gold mining activities in Gorontalo Regency and analyze the factors that hinder law enforcement of these activities. The type of research used is normative legal research with a legislative approach, a conceptual approach, and a case approach. Legal materials consist of primary legal materials, secondary legal materials, and tertiary legal materials obtained through literature studies, then analyzed qualitatively by prescriptive methods. The results of the study show that law enforcement against unlicensed gold mining activities has been expressly regulated in Law Number 2 of 2025 concerning the Fourth Amendment to Law Number 4 of 2009 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining through the application of criminal sanctions against everyone who carries out mining activities without a permit. However, the effectiveness of law enforcement still faces various obstacles, including low public legal awareness, limited law enforcement facilities and infrastructure, and economic factors that encourage people to carry out mining activities without permits. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen supervision, increase public legal awareness, and synergy between the government and law enforcement officials so that law enforcement can be carried out effectively and sustainably.