Indonesian churches warn of impending Lake Toba disaste

May 22, 2021

By Konradus Epa
Environmental destruction has put people living  around Indonesia’s largest lake  at serious risk of natural disaster, Catholic and other Christian  churches have warned.

Deforestation around Lake Toba  in Sumatra has caused more frequent flooding, putting the lives of  people at risk from mudslides and  inundation, they said.

At about 100 kilometres in  length and 30 kilometres wide,  Toba is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in  the world.

It is also a major tourist attraction and the site of a super-volcanic eruption that occurred about  75,000 years ago.

However, the biggest risk to life  is not an eruption but the flooding  that now takes place every year  due to mass deforestation around  the lake, according to Fr Hilarius  Kemit, director of the Capuchins’  Justice, Peace and Integrity of  Creation in Sumatra.

“Local people are often blamed  because forests have given way to  fields, but the government must  shoulder some of the responsibility for having failed to introduce  regulations to protect the environment and forests,” he said.

Illegal logging is also rampant  in the area, he said, calling on  people to “make a stand and fight  before they become victims.” 

If they, as well as the local and  national governments, don’t act  decisively, a major disaster will  happen, he warned.

Fr Kemit pointed to Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment,  Laudato Si’, saying the message  contained in it was not only for  Catholics but for everyone.

Other Christian churches echoed the Catholic priest’s warning.

The Indonesian Batak Protestant Church called on all sectors  of society to reverse the environmental destruction taking place  around the lake. 

“The government should toughen laws on illegal logging and  prevent further clearance,” Rev  Robinson Butarbutar, chairman of  the Indonesian Batak Protestant  Church, said in a May 16 statement. 

Although authorities have succeeded in turning the area into a  major tourism draw to improve  local people’s welfare, the environment should not suffer as that  will also adversely affect the local  population.

“We commit ourselves to cooperating with the government as  a partner in protecting the environment and forest,” Rev Butarbutar said. ––ucanews.com