CEO Note: “Sumatra is a warning from Nature”

Following devastating floods from Cyclone Senyar in Indonesia, Mighty Earth's CEO argues that deforestation has exacerbated the disaster's lethality. The document highlights the Batang Toru ecosystem as a warning sign and calls for an emergency pause on the Food and Energy Estates project to protect the country's climate resilience and enable a 25-million-acre nature restoration initiative.

• Cyclone Senyar caused catastrophic flooding across Southeast Asia, specifically impacting Sumatra, and resulted in over 800 deaths in Indonesia alone.
• Indonesian government officials, including Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq, have stated that the severity of the flooding and loss of life cannot be attributed solely to natural causes, but were made worse by tens of thousands of acres of deforestation in Sumatra.
• The Food and Energy Estates project is described as the world's largest deforestation project, having already cleared 86,000 acres of forests and wetlands in Papua, with plans for a total of 7 million acres across Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua.
• In the Batang Toru ecosystem, hydropower development, industrial forestry plantations, and palm-oil estates have compromised the environment's ability to act as a water buffer, contributing to severe damage during Cyclone Senyar.
• The Prabowo administration has proposed a 25-million-acre nature restoration initiative to increase climate resilience, which could attract investment from sources like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.

APA

Hurowitz, G. (2025). CEO Note: “Sumatra is a warning from Nature”. Mighty Earth. https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-sumatra-is-a-warning-from-nature/

Chicago

Hurowitz, Glenn. CEO Note: “Sumatra is a warning from Nature”. Mighty Earth, 2025. https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-sumatra-is-a-warning-from-nature/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Hurowitz |first1=Glenn |title=CEO Note: “Sumatra is a warning from Nature” |publisher=Mighty Earth |date=5 December 2025 |url=https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-sumatra-is-a-warning-from-nature/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{hurowitz2025ceo, author = {Hurowitz, Glenn}, title = {{CEO Note: “Sumatra is a warning from Nature”}}, publisher = {Mighty Earth}, year = {2025}, month = dec, url = {https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-sumatra-is-a-warning-from-nature/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }