(Jakarta, August 6, 2026) — The Indonesian government and the provincial governments in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra should carry out long overdue reviews of logging, plantations, and gold mining businesses that were a major cause of deaths and injuries in deadly flooding and mudslides last year, Climate Rights International said today after conducting field research in affected areas. On November 26, 2025, Cyclone Senyar made landfall on the Sumatran coast before sweeping across the provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra. Flooding and landslides killed more than 1,200 people, displaced nearly 130,000 households, and caused economic damage estimated at over $4 billion.

Climate scientists have found that the heavy rainfall from Cyclone Senyar, one of the first tropical cyclones ever to form in the Malacca Strait, was made more intense due to the impacts of the climate crisis. The loss of life and damage was then exacerbated by years of deforestation and land degradation by logging, oil palm plantations, and gold mining operations that destroyed the forests that normally absorb and retain rainfall. Landslides fed into rivers that swept several feet of mud into villages and farmland, destroying 31,000 houses and damaging many more, while massive trees and harvested logs crashed down the swollen rivers, demolishing bridges and other essential infrastructure. Despite the scale of the damage, the Indonesian government never declared a national emergency, a decision that limited both national and international aid to victims.

Indonesia’s rapid rate of deforestation, as well as its reliance on coal plants and other fossil fuels, is directly contributing to the climate crisis. Climate Action Tracker rates Indonesia’s climate targets as critically insufficient for reaching global climate goals and avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis.

“Despite ample evidence of the importance of forests in climate resiliency, the Indonesian national and provincial government have failed to effectively hold to account the logging, palm oil, and mining industries that helped turned a cyclone into a massive and preventable human tragedy,” said Brad Adams, Executive Director at Climate Rights International. “The Minister of Environment and the Minister of Forestry should conduct full and transparent environmental audits of all mining, logging, and palm oil concessions in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra. Operations that do not follow laws and regulations should have their permits revoked and be required to rehabilitate the land and forests they have damaged.”

Facing local, national, and international concern over the flooding, in January 2026 a government body known as the Task Force on Forest Area Enforcement (Satuan Tugas Penertiban Kawasan Hutan, or Satgas PKH) expedited audits and revoked 28 logging, palm oil, mining and other permits across the three provinces. Five were in Aceh, but three of those had already had their permits revoked years earlier or were inactive. Some areas with serious flooding, such as Tamiang and East Aceh, saw no permits revoked. It is unclear what impact the revoked permits will have. In other provinces, the task force has handed over seized concessions to a state-owned palm oil business instead of ensuring restoration of the forests. The leadership roles of the Minister of Defense and the Armed Forces Commander in Chief on the task force have led to criticism about a militarized approach to forest protection.

Lack of Progress in Aceh
While local efforts to address the causes will be essential in all three affected provinces, Climate Rights International has only researched the process in Aceh.

Although Aceh’s efforts to address illegal mining and to review palm oil concessions had already begun weeks before the disaster, there has been little follow-up in the eight months since the storm. Following hearings by the provincial parliament, on September 29, 2025, Governor Muzakir Manaf instructed the head of each of the province’s eighteen regencies and five municipalities to work with relevant agencies to collect data on illegal mining, terminate illegal activities, take civil and criminal legal action, and restore areas that suffered environmental damage. While the decree focused mostly on illegal mining, its title covered natural resources more broadly, and the text included language ordering the review of plantations for conformity with environmental laws and regulations, along with the revocation of permits for those in violation.

On October 27, 2025, another decree specified the membership of three working groups on plantations, forestry, and mining. Provincial officials also created an operational plan prioritizing the review of illegal mines in West Aceh, Nagan Raya, and Pidie regencies. The Aceh provincial government, the police and the military were tasked with implementing the plan.

Despite urging from environmental groups, the Acehnese authorities have not operationalized the plan and the review of mining, forestry, and plantation concessions has not begun. This failure leaves watersheds at risk of further degradation and populations at risk of future climate and manmade disasters. Local organizations such as Masyarakat Transparansi Aceh (MaTA) are monitoring the process and pushing for the reviews to be fully operationalized.

However, concerns have been raised about the role of the police and the military in the plan due to allegations that both have profited by protecting illegal mining. For example, a committee of the provincial parliament estimated that 450 illegal mining locations were using 1,000 excavators. The operators reportedly paid Rp 30 million (US$1,675) per month per excavator to local law enforcement, totaling over US$20 million per year in payoffs just to operate machinery in illegal mines. Activists in Aceh told Climate Rights International that they believe other aspects of the industry, such as provision of diesel fuel, may entail corruption as well.

On July 26, 2026, the Aceh Regional Leadership Coordination Forum (Forkopimda), a body of senior provincial authorities, issued an ultimatum requiring the end of illegal gold mining activities and the removal of all heavy machinery from mining sites no later than mid-August 2026. Similar demands have been issued in the past without significant changes on the ground.

A Failed National Response and the Need for an Independent Investigation
Aceh was granted a degree of autonomy over natural resources policies following a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of fighting. However, due to other legislation, such as the Mining Law, the Regional Government Law, and the Job Creation Law, many final decisions remain with ministries in Jakarta.

Victims of the disaster, assisted by environmental and human rights NGOs, filed a lawsuit in an administrative court in May 2026. They are seeking to have the court order the relevant ministries to carry out a review of businesses in the area of the flooding, revoking permits where appropriate, alongside other disaster mitigation and relief policies. The team handling the suit includes Legal Aid Foundation branches in the three provinces, KontraS Aceh, Masyarakat Transparansi Aceh, and several leading national environmental NGOs.

There is no need to wait for a court’s decision to act on such a crucial element of environmental protection and disaster prevention, Climate Rights International said.

“The Indonesian and provincial governments should systematically and transparently review logging, oil palm plantations, and mining operations due to their prevalence and impacts,” said Adams. “Even otherwise lawful concessions that may degrade the flood-prone watersheds should be reviewed and revoked if an appropriate environmental impact assessment was not followed or was obtained through corruption or cronyism.”

Thorough assessments, transparency, and local participation must be part of the process to approve any permits in these sectors. Because these government processes may lack speed and transparency or become enmeshed in conflicts of interest or corruption, an independent review is also urgently needed, said Climate Rights International. Environmental activists, journalists, and members of affected communities that document environmental damage may be unwilling to report to government officials, including police and military, because of fears of retaliation.

Threats and intimidation are common. A study by Auriga Nusantara identified 133 attacks and threats directed at environmentalists over ten years, including 13 killings. Many of the actions took the form of criminalizing advocacy or protest, and a clear majority of cases targeted critics of mining and energy, plantations, and forestry projects. A report released last week by Human Rights Watch documented fifty cases of wrongful prosecution, including strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) against environmental defenders and Indigenous community leaders across the country between 2015 and 2025.

In Aceh, protesting oil palm plantations can lead to criminal charges. Investigating illegal mines can be even more dangerous. One journalist told Climate Rights International, in contrast to legal mines or oil palm plantations, “The risk is not a defamation charge, but a much greater threat. They don’t have a public relations department, or long-term thinking, and they have ex-guerillas or security forces protecting them.”

In 2022, plans by two NGOs to carry out advocacy on a gold and iron ore mine led to visits to their offices by the military, former combatants, and unknown people. They told Climate Rights International that the message they received was “if you visit the area again, we don’t know what will happen to you.” Out of concern for their staff and especially for the local community, they suspended their work on this project.

Climate Rights International called on Indonesian and multinational companies to investigate their supply chains to ensure they are not sourcing illegally mined minerals, timber, or other commodities from these areas. If companies find they are sourcing illegally mined material they should cut off that supplier. Companies sourcing even legal commodities from the area should conduct due diligence into environmental and human rights harms by their suppliers and, if they find such harms, use their leverage to pressure the supplier to end those practices. If necessary, they should suspend or stop sourcing commodities from producers that fail to take appropriate action.

Companies responsible for deforestation contributing to environmental damage should be held accountable and required to compensate victims and restore degraded land. Concessions seized should be rehabilitated in consultation with local communities rather than handed over to state-owned enterprises.

As communities in Indonesia and around the world continue to feel the acute impacts of the climate crisis and increasing extreme weather events like Cyclone Senyar, the Indonesian government must step up its climate action, including accelerating a just energy transition away from fossil fuels and stopping massive deforestation projects across the country. The Indonesian government should create time-bound plans to phase out all coal-fired power plants by 2040—as promised by President Prabowo at the G20 in 2024—curb deforestation, and ensure that all industries, including mining and oil palm, are aligned with Indonesian’s Paris Agreement targets.

“Climate change makes powerful storms increasingly likely,” said Adams. “Insufficient climate action and continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels by the Indonesian government will make deadly storms like Cyclone Senyar even more likely in the future.”