JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Roads turned into murky brown rivers, houses were swept away by strong currents and bodies were pulled from mud during deadly floods and landslides after heavy rains hit West Sumatra in early March. Disasters in Indonesia.
Government officials blamed heavy rains for the floods, but environmental groups cited the disaster as the latest example of deforestation and environmental degradation intensifying the effects of severe weather across Indonesia.
“This disaster occurred not only due to extreme weather conditions, but also due to the ecological crisis,” Indonesian environmental rights group Indonesian Environmental Forum wrote in a statement. “If the environment continues to be ignored, we will continue to reap ecological disasters.”
Indonesia, a vast tropical archipelago stretching along the equator, is home to the world’s third largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants, giant and blooming jungle flowers. Some of them don’t live anywhere else.
For generations, forests have played a central role in the cultural practices of millions of Indigenous residents in Indonesia, while also providing livelihoods, food, and medicine.
Since 1950, according to Global, more than 74 million hectares (285,715 square miles) of Indonesian rainforest (an area twice the size of Germany) has been logged, burned or burned for the development of palm oil, paper and rubber plantations, mining and other commodities. broken. Forest Watcher.
Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal and a leading producer of pulp. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin and other resources. It also has the world’s largest reserves of nickel, a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other products needed for the transition to green energy.
According to the Global Carbon Project, Indonesia is consistently ranked as one of the largest global emitters of plant-harming greenhouse gases, with emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and peatland fires.
It is also highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including extreme events such as floods and droughts, long-term changes from sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns and rising temperatures, according to the World Bank. In recent years, the country has already seen the effects of climate change: more intense rains, landslides and floods in the wet season, and more fires in the longer dry season.
But Aida Greenbury, a sustainability expert focusing on Indonesia, said forests could play a vital role in reducing the impact of some extreme weather events.
Floods can be slowed by trees and vegetation that absorb rainwater and reduce erosion. During the dry season, forests release moisture that helps alleviate the effects of drought, including fires.
However, when forests decrease, these benefits also decrease.
A 2017 study reported that forest conversion and deforestation expose bare soil to rainfall, causing soil erosion. Frequent harvesting activities and removal of ground vegetation, such as that on palm oil plantations, further compact the soil, causing rain to run off the surface rather than entering groundwater reservoirs. According to the research, downstream erosion also increases sediments in rivers, makes them shallower and increases the risk of floods.
West Sumatra Governor Mahyeldi Ansharullah said that following the deadly floods in Sumatra in early March, there were strong signs of illegal logging in areas affected by floods and landslides. This, combined with excessive rainfall, inadequate drainage systems and inappropriate housing development, contributed to the disaster, he said.
Experts and environmental activists have also noted that deforestation is worsening disasters in other parts of Indonesia: In 2021, environmental activists blamed deadly floods in Kalimantan in part on environmental degradation caused by large-scale mining and palm oil operations. Deforestation was partly blamed for floods and landslides that killed more than a hundred people in Papua in 2019.
There have been some signs of progress: In 2018, Indonesian President Joko Widodo froze new permits for palm oil plantations for three years. The rate of deforestation slowed between 2021-2022, according to government data.
But experts warn that deforestation in Indonesia is unlikely to stop in the near future as the government continues to push ahead with new mining and infrastructure projects such as new nickel smelters and cement plants.
“Businesses have already been granted a lot of land use and land-based investment permits, and many of these areas are already prone to disasters,” said Indonesia-based forestry expert Arie Rompas of Greenpeace.
President Prabowo Subianto, who is scheduled to take office in October, has vowed to continue Widodo’s development policy, which includes large-scale food plants, mining and other infrastructure developments linked to deforestation.
Environmental watchdogs also warn that environmental protections in Indonesia are weakening; this includes the introduction of the controversial Omnibus Bill. This law eliminates an article of the Forestry Law regarding the minimum forest area that must be protected in development projects.
“The removal of this article makes us very concerned (about deforestation) for years to come,” Rompas said.
While experts and activists agree that development is essential for Indonesia’s economy to continue moving forward, they argue that it should be done in a way that takes the environment into account and includes better land planning.
“We can’t continue down the path we’ve been on,” said Greenbury, the sustainability expert. “We must make sure that the soil, the soil in the forest, will not be destroyed.”
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