Global paper giant cancels APRIL contract to stop Indonesia rainforest destruction

The Finnish-owned company, which supplies products like photocopy paper to global markets including the US, China, Europe and Australia, admitted that APRIL’s pulp “comes from a very delicate environment" and is reported to have said it will cancel its contract. (1) Greenpeace estimates this contract to be equal to over 4% of APRIL’s total pulp production, worth over US$55 million annually. (2)

“This is a very positive move by UPM to help protect Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon rich peatlands, the destruction of which is driving climate change, mass species extinction and causing poverty in forest dependent communities,” said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s Forest campaigner.

“If international companies start distancing themselves from this environmental disaster, the call the end global deforestation here and around the globe will only get louder and louder. It is not only one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to combat climate change but is essential in order to protect the unique flora, fauna and the forest dependent communities of the world.”

Yesterday’s action took place as President Barack Obama prepares to fly to Asia for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Activists from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Brazil and Finland shut down APRIL’s operations in the heart of the Indonesian rainforest on the island of Sumatra. They locked themselves to seven machines used to clear vast tracts of forest and peatland for conversion to pulp wood plantations. Other activists unfurled a huge banner in a freshly destroyed area of rainforest that read “Obama: you can stop this”, urging him to join other world leaders and help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Earlier this week, Greenpeace released fresh evidence, including aerial surveillance images that prove APRIL is destroying areas of rainforest and draining forest peatland on Sumatra’s threatened Kampar Peninsula. (3) The evidence also strongly indicates that the company is clearing forest on peat which is more than 3 metres deep. This is illegal under Indonesian law.

Over a million hectares of forest, mostly tropical rainforest, is destroyed every month – that is an area of forest the size of a football pitch every two seconds. Rainforest and peatland destruction in Indonesia emits such huge quantities of CO2 that is has driven the country to become the world's third largest climate polluter after China and the US.

"President Obama, Yudhoyono and other world leaders must listen and take action to pull us back from the brink of a climate crisis. They must attend the UN climate summit and agree to a fair, ambitious and binding deal that includes ending the destruction of the world’s rainforests,” said Von Hernandez, Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.