THIS is with reference to the report ‘Starvation fears as flood toll passes 900 in Indonesia’ (Dec 6). Beyond Sumatra, the flood is a warning to Manila, Dhaka, Lagos and the entire Global South, where extractive capitalism has transformed ecosystems into sacrifice zones.
According to data till Dec 5, more than 835,000 were displaced; a population nearly the size of Bhutan. The economic paralysis is total, and the infrastructure is destroyed completely, with more than 400 bridges washed away, 270 health facilities damaged, and over 500 schools standing submerged. This is not merely data; this is the slaughter of life by a system that values timber, palm oil and coal more than human lives.
When the waters receded, thousands of families found their homes buried in mud and their futures shattered. These facts were the stark culmination of decades of failure. Forests that once absorbed rainfall were now bare. Rivers that once flowed calmly now overflowed like tsunamis. This disaster was caused by an extractive economic model that, for two decades, had traded forests as commodities.
The government blamed tropical cyclone Senyar as the primary cause of this natural disaster that was beyond human control. However, data and history contradict this comfortable narrative. The real reason was the systematic des-truction of forest cover, land conversion and corporate permits issued by the state. At the same time, the people were forced to pay the price for economic growth and commodity exports.
The flood in Sumatra is not simply a hydro-meteorological tragedy. It is South-
east Asia’s largest ecological disaster in 2025, underscoring Indonesia’s environ-mental governance failures, structural inequalities and geopolitical contradictions despite its image as the guardian of the world’s tropical forests. The deforestation activity in Sumatra shows a consistent pattern.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of hectares of primary forest are converted to palm oil plantations, mining concessions, and pulp and paper facilities. Global Forest Watch documents that Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra have lost 7,569 square miles of forest since 2000, an area larger than New Jersey.
As environmentalists note, rainforest cover acts like a sponge, absorbing water, but after deforestation, there is nothing to slow the torrential rain as it enters the waterways. So, when the heavy rains arrived this year, the waters rushed in, carrying mud and felled timber that crashed into the houses downstream.
Large corporations and agribusiness conglomerates were the primary per-
petrators holding permits during the peak period of deforestation in Sumatra. They must be held accountable for the land conversion that exacerbated the flooding. This is not just a result of the rain, but a result of extractive capitalism sacrificing ecosystems for oligarchic profits.
Palm oil expansion has been a major driver of deforestation over the past 20 years. Sumatra experienced a 3.7-fold increase in palm oil-driven deforestation in 2022 compared to 2020. The world demands that Indonesia protect its ‘lungs of the world’, but global banks finance the deforestation that is causing these disasters. This is climate colonialism disguised as green rhetoric.
The recent disaster has exposed the fundamental contradictions of Indonesia’s development model. We can no longer build capitalism by liquidating our essential ecological foundations. What we need are structural transformation and the enforcement of ecological justice.
Bobby Ciputra
Jakarta, Indonesia
Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2025
