One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. From a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, the vast volcanic basin at the heart of Sumatra, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang looks down on what he calls both a blessing and a warning, reports Sri Wahyuni for Mongabay. Once the first district leader of Samosir, Wilmar has spent his retirement rewilding parts of this landscape sacred to the Batak people. “If we don’t pay attention to this, Lake Toba will be just a memory,” he says. That memory is fading fast. Pollution, logging and unchecked plantations have clouded the waters of what was once among Indonesia’s purest lakes. “The forest is being cut down, both legally and illegally — biodiversity is being burned,” Wilmar