With Asia Pulp & Paper now seemingly deforestation-free, Greenpeace has shifted its focus to Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (April) which it claims is still cutting down rainforest in Indonesia despite pledges to stop.
The paper manufacturer brands its stock as PaperOne in Australia, mainly supplying office paper for printing and photocopying.
With a similar tactic to the one it employed again APP in a decade-long war, the environmental activist organisation is putting pressure on April customers to boycott, as Officeworks and Staples have already done, until the deforestation stops.
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April announced a ‘sustainable forest management policy’ in January, pledging to stop logging high conservation value forests and peat swamp, stop establishing plantations by the end of this year, and to get all its fibre from plantations by 2020.
However, following news reports in May that the company was racing to log tropical forest growing on deep peat swamp in North Sumatra before the deadline, Greenpeace has now stepped up its attack.
“April has been caught out telling its customers it has support from governments and NGOs for a new policy to end rainforest clearance, but at the exact same time its bulldozers are out trashing Indonesia's rainforests and peatlands,” Greenpeace Australia-Pacific senior forest campaigner Reece Turner says.
The paper manufacturer is attempting to sidestep the allegations by saying it is not high conservation value forest (HCVF), according to a peer-reviewed assessment, and it is therefore allowed to cut it down.
“April is operating at Pulau Padang in line with its sustainable forest management policy, which means operations commenced only after the HCVF assessment was completed. We are operating only on non-HCVF areas,” it says in a letter to activists.
Greenpeace does not buy this defence, saying that according to High Conservation Value Resource Network, which reviewed the concessions, it has only assessed two of APRIL’s 50 concessions.
“Apparently APRIL doesn’t consider the clearance of rainforest on areas of deep peat to be in conflict with its conservation commitments,” Turner says.
“That should tell its customers all they need to know about the credibility of their commitments. We expect these customers to take urgent action.”
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