JAKARTA (UCAN): Environmental destruction has put people living around, Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, Catholic and other Christian Churches have warned.
At about 100 kilometres long 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 Father 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,” Father Kemit said, adding that illegal logging is also rampant. He called on people to “make a stand and fight before they become victims.”
He warned that a failure to act decisively will lead to a major disaster.
Father Kemit said that the message of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, was not just for Catholics but for everyone.
Other Christian Churches echoed the Catholic priest’s warning.
“The government should toughen laws on illegal logging and prevent further clearance,” Reverend Robinson Butarbutar, chairperson of the Indonesian Batak Protestant Church, said in a May 16 statement that called on all sectors of society to reverse the environmental destruction happening around the lake.
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 cooperate with the government as a partner in protecting the environment and forest,” Reverend Butarbutar said.
