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Today, Mesel Ratatotok Hill is green. There are rows of trees as far as the eye can see, and it is green and cool. It seems inconceivable that this 221-hectare forest was once a gold mine. The Bukit Messel Forest, located in Southeast Minahasa, North Sulawesi, is the result of the reclamation of the PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, which later became Megawati Soekarnoputri Botanical Gardens.
PT Newmont Minahasa Raya was founded in 1984 and ceased operations at Ratatotok in 2004, after digging for 1.9 million troy ounces of gold. The reclamation process took place from 1996 to 2010. Bukit Mesel was then returned to a limited production forest plantation, back to being like hills in general. In January 2011, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya officially handed back its borrowed use area to the Government of the Republic of Indonesia.