Small-scale gold mining activities and their mercury emissions in the Gorontalo Utara Regency of the Gorontalo Province, Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, have been studied. The mining occurs in many areas of this region, but especially in the three villages Hulawa, Ilangata and Ilangata Barat. Mining activities in the Hulawa village are the oldest (19th century) in the regency, whereas mining in the Ilangata village began just 15 years ago. The activity level changes rapidly from time to time depending on the fluctuations of the gold market. Women and children are involved in the gold mining process. Female workers crush ore, process sediment wastes, and pan for gold in rivers. Children assist their mothers in these activities and play around the mining sites. Gold mining in the Utara Regency is estimated to produce about 290 kg of gold and emits approximately 860 kg of mercury into the environment annually. The impact of such large mercury release into the environment have caused environmental degradation and contamination of fish as food for humans. Collaborative works of stakeholders are urgently needed to find solutions to the problems related to small-scale gold mining such as marginalization and environmental pollution.

The values (i.e., importance) that humans place on ecosystems are critical for sustainable socioecological management. Recently, the value pluralism approach with instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values using multiple disciplines that integrate qualitative and quantitative methodologies has been encouraged. However, these values have received little attention in environmental management. This study explored the values placed on cultural practices among groups experiencing different land cover transformations (LCTs) under the rapid shrinkage of the Limboto Lake, Gorontalo Province, Indonesia, using questionnaires and time-series Landsat and PlanetScope smallsat constellations (SSCs). The time series of LCTs and questionnaire data were computed, visualized, and analyzed statistically using the chi-square test for comparing the two village groups. Results show SSCs enabled a detailed analysis due to high spatiotemporal resolutions in tropical regions. This observation would help in monitoring natural disasters (floods) caused by the decreased lake’s water storing capacity, agricultural damage, locality safety, and environmental protection in shorter cycles. Furthermore, we found that relational values originating from traditional beliefs and practices were the domain values in the land steady-type villages. Hence, integrating the cultural–environmental values of localities with prior spatiotemporal analysis into environmental management policy and implementation processes would be a high-potential alternative for environmental conservation.

Gorontalo is reputed to be one of the best-quality gold producers in the Indonesian archipelago. Gold production has been largely achieved through the activities of artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM), which as part of its extraction process, primarily uses mercury—a substance known to cause negative impacts on health and the environment, leading also to numerous socio-economic issues. This research aims (1) to investigate the extent of rural knowledge regarding mercury and to determine whether a video that explains mercury and the problems that occur as a result of ASGM can significantly transform rural populations’ knowledge; (2) to inspect different factors separating the SR group (those who live in the same regency as the ASGM area) from the NR group (those who live in the neighboring regency/city of the ASGM area) and to find out whether said factors are statistically significant. The results show that the test subjects’ knowledge of mercury had increased after watching the video, and that their willingness to oppose ASGM activities is one of the significant factors within the two groups. Moreover, this paper briefly describes the follow-up activities of the SRIREP project (Co-creation of Sustainable Regional Innovation for Reducing Risk of High-impact Environmental Pollution) in encouraging rural communities to explore sustainable livelihoods as an alternative to ASGM.