Catastrophic floods that struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra in November 2025 have killed more than 1,150 people, displaced nearly 400,000, and exposed decades of state-enabled environmental destruction. Analysts and civil society groups say the disaster was made significantly worse by systematic deforestation — over 330,000 hectares cleared for oil palm plantations between 2017 and 2023 alone — driven by weak regulatory oversight, opaque licensing, and laws such as Indonesia's 2020 Omnibus Law on Job Creation, which accelerated the conversion of forests into commercial concessions while rolling back environmental safeguards. President Prabowo Subianto's refusal to declare a national disaster, combined with longstanding allegations that plantation and mining permits have benefited politically connected corporations, has fuelled widespread public anger and protests, with civil society groups warning of growing repression against those who speak out.