Jakarta – Blaming nature for the deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra is not going to take us very far beyond stating the obvious and long held wisdom that, if we cannot beat nature, we have to try to live with it.

As long as we are in the blame game, however, we should look at the role we humans played in this havoc that has led to more than 800 deaths and massive destruction displacing more than 1.2 million people.

Indonesia is no stranger to many deadly natural disasters, from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes to tsunamis, these are beyond our control. The Sumatra floods tell us that now we have to add cyclones to the list, something which regularly hits the neighboring Philippines but rarely our islands, and rarely as deadly as we just saw in Sumatra.

But we cannot let the government, and the greedy corporations whose interests it serves, off the hook. Some of the destruction in Sumatra, maybe even a large part of it, could have been prevented had they not colluded to strip the island of its tropical rainforests that are essential to absorb rain water.

It is tempting to say "we told you so" but for decades environmental experts and civil society organizations have been warning about the dire impacts to the environment of the rapid deforestation in Sumatra and other islands in our archipelago.

You can forgive the government for its failure to anticipate Cyclone Senyar and the tropical rainstorms that hit Sumatra, but it has had plenty of advance warning about the devastation made much more likely by their collaboration in destroying large tracts of forest.

The government chose to ignore these warnings, insisting that plantation and mining businesses bring economic development, creating jobs for millions of people, and that therefore they are essential to the nation's poverty alleviation program.

But we all know that the real motive behind this is profit for the corporate world. Not surprisingly, some government officials, the very same ones who loudly defended the policy in the name of protecting the people, own plantation businesses. Now, it is the people who have to pay the price for the government's neglect.

There is not much we can do about the deaths, but there is plenty of work to help find the still missing, to treat the injured and to help the displaced rebuild their lives. We also need to start addressing the corruption and collusion between the government and the corporate world who are responsible for the tragedy.

Many of the country's giant corporations made their trillions in plantation and mining by destroying the environment. They portray themselves as good corporate citizens for bringing prosperity to the people, and are among the largest taxpayers. They also donate significantly to political parties and to many social and sports causes.

The government may have in place laws and regulations on these companies to protect the environment, but obviously they are not enough. We need not only tougher laws and regulations on the use and conversion of forest land by plantation and mining companies, but also tighter supervision and credible enforcement of these rules.

We have been too lenient to plantation companies for starting forest fires, a cheap and fast way of clearing tracts of forests. Let us see if anyone, or any company, will be punished for the Sumatra floods.

The Sumatra floods should be a wake-up call. Devastating cyclones may be rare in Indonesia, but global warming has altered weather patterns. We should not easily dismiss Senyar as a freak event. We must anticipate more cyclones to hit with greater intensity and frequency to spread to Java, which is almost denuded of forests, and other islands where forests are being cleared for profit.

For once, the government should listen more seriously to all the warnings from experts and civil society organizations instead of protecting corporate interests.

Source: https://asianews.network/save-our-forest-save-our-soul-the-jakarta-post