December 12, 2025 | 04:42 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) in West Sumatra considers the flash floods that have struck several areas in the province not just a natural disaster, but an ecological crisis that has accumulated over decades, during which time the government has never taken restorative measures.
"This disaster was caused by an accumulated ecological crisis that has not been restored," said Walhi West Sumatra Director Wengki Purwanto in an interview with Tempo on Friday, December 12, 2025.
Wengki criticized the government for referring to this event only as a hydrometeorological or natural disaster. According to him, this is an effort to conceal the actual root of the problem. "The government stops at weather anomalies alone, but does not see why the weather is like that," he said.
Walhi notes that large corporations converted around 158,000 hectares of forest in West Sumatra into palm oil plantations between 1990 and 2014. This area is equivalent to twice the size of Padang City. "With such a large scale, the ecological function of the forest is lost, and there will certainly be an ecological crisis," explained Wengki.
He added that the management of palm oil plantations is also not environmentally sensitive. Palm oil is planted in riparian areas that should have been left untouched to maintain ecological functions.
According to him, the root of the ecological crisis is a political and democratic crisis. "The control of policy formation is under the control of an oligarchy. The eyes and ears of the policy are closed and controlled by the interests of the oligarchy," said Wengki. As a result, environmental crimes such as illegal logging, illegal mining, and plantation expansion can occur on a large scale for decades without ever being restored.
He highlighted the systematic neglect of disaster-prone areas. For example, the Haney Waste area has been warned as a disaster-prone area since 2022. However, the cold lava flood experience was not taken as a lesson by the regional government. "Companies that have violated the rules are never executed. Instead, the government issues permits with a one-year handling period, and after that, they are left alone," Wengki revealed.
Similarly, the Batang Anai area has been identified as a disaster-prone area since the eruption of Mount Merapi. Following the 2023 flood, another cold lava flood occurred in 2024. Now, there is another one on an even larger scale with more casualties. "It is purely the government's negligence and disregard. There may even be intentional factors," he emphasized.
Read: Sumatra Floods Damage 11,000 Hectares of Rice Fields
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