- Deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra in late 2025 underscored how deforestation, weak spatial planning and extractive development have increased Indonesia’s vulnerability to extreme weather — problems scientists and activists say the government has largely failed to confront.
- Forest loss surged nationwide in 2025, with Sumatra overtaking Borneo as the main deforestation hotspot, while large areas of forest in Papua were redesignated for food estates, agriculture and biofuel projects, raising concerns over carbon emissions and biodiversity loss.
- Despite international pledges to phase out coal, national energy plans continued to lock in coal, gas and biomass co-firing for decades, while palm oil expansion and mining — including in sensitive areas like Raja Ampat — remained central to development strategy, often prompting action only after public pressure.
- Civil society groups increasingly turned to lawsuits amid shrinking space for dissent, rising criminalization of Indigenous communities and activists, and growing militarization of land-use projects — trends campaigners warn are weakening democratic safeguards and environmental protections alike.
JAKARTA — Indonesia closed 2025 facing an uncomfortable reality: climate disasters are escalating while policy direction has remained largely unchanged during President Prabowo Subianto’s first year in office, with the country still heavily dependent on fossil fuels and extractive industries such as palm oil and mining.
One of the deadliest disasters in Indonesia in recent years struck in November 2025, when days of intense rainfall triggered flooding and landslides across three provinces on the island of Sumatra: Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.
Scientists and environmental groups say the destruction should not be treated as an isolated natural event. Instead, they point to long-standing problems in land use, energy planning and governance that have left large parts of the island more vulnerable to extreme weather.
They argue that forest loss, industrial expansion and weak controls on permits and spatial planning have worsened the impact of heavy rain.
River catchments, upstream forests and steep slopes that play a key role in absorbing water are still allowed to be legally deforested under current land-use rules.
Disasters as warning signs, not anomalies
For Leonard Simanjuntak, the Indonesia country director for Greenpeace, the disasters were a “hard warning” that the country’s environmental carrying capacity has reached a critical point — a warning that, he said, has largely gone unheeded.
“I think the Sumatra disaster was a very strong warning,” he told Mongabay. “But over the past year, there have been many other warnings too, and they seem not to have been taken seriously.”
Leonard pointed to the scale of the damage. As of Dec. 30, 1,141 people had died due to the floods and landslides in Sumatra, 163 were still missing, and more than 166,000 homes had been damaged, according to official figures.
“What kind of wake-up call do we need beyond this?” he said.
Deforestation ramping up
Researchers and activists have long linked flood risk in Sumatra to deforestation. Data compiled by local NGO Trend Asia, which advocates for a clean energy transition, show that Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra together lost about 3.68 million hectares (9.1 million acres) of natural forest between 2014 and 2024. Much of that land was cleared for timber estates, oil palm plantations and other commercial uses.
Conditions worsened again in 2025. Satellite analysis by environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara found that deforestation nationwide reached roughly 470,000 hectares (1.16 million acres) by October, almost double the total recorded for all of 2024. Sumatra overtook Indonesian Borneo as ground zero for deforestation in the country. In Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra, forest loss jumped between three and five times compared with the previous year.
As public scrutiny intensified, President Prabowo said at a meeting in Jakarta on Dec. 15 that his government had not issued or extended any forestry or mining permits throughout 2025. However, an examination by the Indonesian affiliate of German state broadcaster DW found no public database that allows the claim to be independently checked.
Papua and the food estate push
While the government says it hasn’t issued new forestry or mining concessions, the Prabowo administration has moved to redesignate vast forest areas for other purposes.
In 2025, the government removed forest status from nearly 487,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) in Merauke district in the Papua region — an area roughly three times the size of London — to make way for a mega-scale “food estate” program.
Under the program, Prabowo aims to boost food sovereignty by developing vast agricultural estates across Indonesia. Since its inception under previous administrations, the food estate program has drawn controversy for enabling forest clearing on an industrial scale.
In Merauke, the plan envisions up to 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of industrial agriculture, including sugarcane and rice. So far, the government has allocated more than 560,000 hectares (1.38 million acres), an area roughly the size of the island of Bali, to 10 companies for sugarcane and bioethanol concessions.
Environmental groups warn the costs could be high. Greenpeace estimates that clearing the area could release up to 221 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Its latest report shows that two companies involved in the project have already cleared more than 23,000 hectares (56,800 acres) of forests, savannas and wetlands over the past 18 months.
Palm oil obsession
While the food estate program doesn’t yet formally include oil palm plantations in Papua, Prabowo on Dec. 16 encouraged local leaders to plant oil palms to produce biofuels as a substitute for fossil fuels, part of his push for energy self-sufficiency and reduced oil imports.
The remarks followed a presidential instruction issued in September 2025 to expand plantations around the Merauke food estate, including plans for 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres) of oil palm for biodiesel.
Earlier in the year, Prabowo also defended oil palm expansion by dismissing concerns about deforestation, saying that “oil palms are trees … they’ve got leaves.”
The comments drew criticism from environmental groups, which say they contradict established scientific evidence showing how industrial plantations have driven deforestation, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.
“He seems quite obsessed with choices that, unfortunately, exploit our natural resources to an extreme degree,” Greenpeace’s Leonard said. “It seems he has a firm conviction that Indonesia must be built according to his strategy — by maximizing the exploitation of natural resources. And that’s problematic. Narratives about sovereignty end up directly or indirectly sacrificing sustainability.”
Raja Ampat
Pressure on Papua’s environment in 2025 wasn’t limited to land-based projects. Nickel mining in Raja Ampat, an archipelago famed for its coral reefs and marine biodiversity, sparked international attention. Several mining permits overlap with small islands, forested areas and coastal waters in a region that was this year designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Environmental groups warned that mining could send sediment into surrounding seas, threatening coral reefs, fisheries and tourism-dependent communities. After weeks of criticism, much of it amplified through the #SaveRajaAmpat campaign, the government revoked four private nickel permits and temporarily suspended operations at PT Gag Nikel, the only remaining operator, in June 2025.
Campaigners welcomed the decision but cautioned that it addressed only part of the problem. They warned that without broader safeguards for small islands and marine ecosystems, similar disputes would likely return. Gag Nikel was later allowed to resume operations.
That pattern — acting only under pressure, coupled with broader policy continuity — has defined much of Prabowo’s first year in office.
Domestic policy versus international rhetoric
Another defining characteristic of Prabowo’s leadership is contradiction between domestic policy and international rhetoric, Leonard said.
At the G20 summit in November 2024, Prabowo pledged to phase out coal-fired power plants by 2040 and to achieve a fully renewable electricity system by the mid-2030s, raising hopes that one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters might finally embark on a genuine energy transition.
Yet analyses by civil society groups, including the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Trend Asia and Greenpeace, show the government’s latest core electricity planning documents — the National Electricity General Plan (RUKN) and the Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), both updated in 2025 — contradict those pledges.
Both plans effectively extend coal power into the 2060s by promoting so-called biomass co-firing — replacing a fraction of the coal being burned with wood chips — as a climate solution, despite warnings that it could drive further deforestation.
“The RUKN and RUPTL still place coal as the backbone of the electricity system, with no visible effort to phase coal out of power generation,” said Dwi Sawung, a Walhi campaigner for spatial planning and infrastructure. “There is no clear target for when coal-fired power plants will be retired one by one.”
Increased use of natural gas and speculative technologies such as carbon capture have also been touted to justify delaying a coal phase-out.
“At a time when people are losing their homes, their health, even their lives due to the climate crisis, national energy policy continues to lock in coal and gas for decades to come as risky energy choices, both economically and environmentally,” said Wildan Siregar, a campaign and advocacy officer at Trend Asia.
Frustrated by what they see as policy backsliding, civil society groups escalated their response in 2025 by filing lawsuits against the national energy plans, arguing they violate climate commitments, development laws and citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.
Shrinking civic space
Conservationists chalked up a few wins this year. Under new administration, the forestry ministry has signaled that population surveys of endangered wildlife will be a priority, after years without updated figures for key species. And new discoveries, such as the identification of a population of Tapanuli orangutans outside their previously known range, have sparked optimism even amid concerns about threats facing the newly identified habitat.
However, the growing number of court cases challenging government policy reflects wider frustration among civil society groups.
Activists say decision-making has become more centralized and increasingly intolerant of criticism, narrowing the space to challenge policies that carry environmental risks.
Since Prabowo took office, his administration has faced at least five large protest waves linked to controversial laws and decisions that consolidate power.
The most recent occurred in August, when protests erupted over lavish state spending for members of the House of Representatives. The demonstrations were met with police violence, resulting in the death of a motorcycle rideshare driver and the arrest of 5,444 people.
Indigenous communities have also faced increasing pressure. According to data from the Indigenous alliance AMAN, at least 162 Indigenous people were subjected to criminalization or violence in 2025.
During the same period, AMAN found Indigenous communities lost around 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) of customary land to forestry, mining, energy and plantation concessions — three times the annual average of the past decade.
AMAN secretary-general Rukka Sombolinggi attributed the escalation to the growing military presence in civilian affairs, including in government-backed projects such as the food estate program in Papua.
“We notice that militarization has made a return, and the magnitude is multiple,” she said. “Deforestation on Indigenous lands taken for the food estate program is being carried out by soldiers.”
Leonard warned that the trend risks eroding Indonesia’s democratic safeguards — and, with them, environmental protections.
“A militaristic government is fundamentally bad at listening,” he said. “It struggles to accept critical and dissenting views. We are seeing increasing criminalization of activists.”
Prabowo has also weakened opposition within political institutions by bringing most rival parties into his governing coalition, reducing checks and balances in parliament.
“This kind of government turns parliament into a rubber stamp,” Leonard said. “In that situation, space to question what needs fixing — and what would be better for the environment and climate — continues to shrink.”
Banner image: A woman stands near a shop damaged during a flood in Aceh province, Indonesia, Nov. 29, 2025. Image by AP Photos/Reza Saifullah.
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