Legal action taken against pulp company
Indonesia: WALHI has filed a lawsuit against the pulp company Toba Pulp Lestari with the Medan District Court, demanding the restoration of ecosystems affected by the environmental disaster in North Sumatra. The intervention is essential to restore and protect habitat for Tapanuli orangutans and Sumatran tigers.
Since the start of 2026, Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment has been pursuing legal action against the pulp company Toba Pulp Lestari. Now the environmental organization WALHI has joined the case as a third-party plaintiff. WALHI wants to ensure that Toba Pulp Lestari restores the full ecosystem affected by Cyclone Senyar, not just a small part of it.
In late November 2025, landslides and flooding following the cyclone devastated many parts of Sumatra. More than a thousand people died, and homes, bridges and roads have yet to be rebuilt. The impacts have been so devastating because of massive rainforest clearing, especially in the upper reaches of the Batang Toru and Sibundong rivers.
Toba Pulp Lestari has cleared large areas of North Sumatra for 40 years to produce pulp and viscose near Lake Toba. Indigenous Batak people have protested against the company for years, yet Toba Pulp Lestari has continued to harass and criminalize them. Only after the cyclone did the government shut down the company, and the Ministry of Environment filed a lawsuit to secure environmental restoration.
WALHI has now submitted numerous documents showing the link between clear-cutting, particularly in North Tapanuli Regency, and the post-cyclone disaster. In WALHI’s view, the damage threatens biodiversity and the ecology of the entire landscape. Tapanuli orangutans are also affected. According to scientific studies, 33 to 54 of these critically endangered great apes may have been killed by the devastation.
WALHI is also calling for the restoration of 15,940 hectares in the Batang Toru forest, home to the Tapanuli orangutan, as well as a 12,392-hectare corridor for Sumatran tigers.
In its lawsuit, WALHI asks the court to impose strict liability on Toba Pulp Lestari for the environmental damage and require the company to carry out a comprehensive environmental restoration within three years.
WALHI believes that the restoration proposed by the government does not reflect the full scale of the ecological damage. It is therefore seeking more funding to restore Tapanuli orangutan habitat, the Sumatran tiger corridor and the areas deforested by Toba Pulp Lestari.
WALHI is asking the court to seize Toba Pulp Lestari’s assets to ensure the ruling is enforced and that the company meets its responsibilities to the environment and local people.
The lawsuit also has historic significance. In 1988, WALHI sued the company when it was still called Indorayon. That case was a milestone in securing environmental organizations’ right to bring legal action in Indonesia.
TPL belongs to the pulp corporation APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited), which is part of the Royal Golden Eagle holding company.
“Shut down Toba Pulp Lestari!” local people have demanded every day for years, as eucalyptus plantations for the pulp mill spread into the Batang Toru forest. For 40 years, Toba Pulp Lestari has destroyed the rainforest, taken ancestral land from Indigenous Batak people, polluted rivers and Lake Toba, and repeatedly used violence.
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