Recovery of Lake Toba is said to be only 57 percent, administrative achievement is 89 percent

Jumhur also emphasized that corporate social responsibility programs cannot be used as a substitute for legal environmental restoration obligations.

The draft is part of a movement the government calls “Ecological Repentance”. The implementation still needs to be explained through targets, division of responsibilities, schedules and measures of success that can be checked by the public.

Forest cover increases, secondary forests shrink

Apart from Lake Toba, Jumhur highlighted changes in land cover in North Sumatra. Based on the evaluation of the 2026 North Sumatra Strategic Environmental Study (KLHS) quoted by KLH/Environmental Management Agency (BPLH), forest vegetated land cover increased from 1.62 million hectares in 2018 to 1.76 million hectares in 2024.

In the same period, the area of secondary dry land forest actually fell from 950,000 hectares to 748,000 hectares.

The differences in the direction of change indicate the need to read land cover composition in more detail. The overall increase in vegetation area is not enough to explain the condition of each type of forest and its ecological function.

This information does not include details of changes between types of land cover, locations of secondary forest loss, or mapping methods.