A woman walks near logs swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of …JAKARTA, Indonesia —
A vast tropical archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants, giant and blooming forest flowers. Some live nowhere else. Indonesia is the biggest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal and a top producer of pulp for paper. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin and other resources. And it also has the world’s largest reserves of nickel - a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition.
But forests can help play a vital role in reducing the impact of some extreme weather events, said Aida Greenbury, a sustainability expert focusing on Indonesia. Experts and environmental activists have pointed to deforestation worsening disasters in other regions of Indonesia as well: In 2021 environmental activists partially blamed deadly floods in Kalimantan on environmental degradation caused by large-scale mining and palm oil operations. In Papua, deforestation was partially blamed for floods and landslides that killed over a hundred people in 2019.
“A lot of land use and land-based investment permits have already been given to businesses, and a lot of these areas are already prone to disasters,” said Arie Rompas, an Indonesia-based forestry expert at Greenpeace.