APRIL is pulping the rainforest - but its customers are walking away

Posted by Richardg — 10 July 2014 at 12:05pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Ulet Ifansati

Customers are suspending contracts with Indonesia’s second largest pulp and paper company APRIL after we exposed its destruction of rainforests and fire-prone peatland.

Earlier this year, APRIL, which is part of the Royal Golden Eagle Group (RGE),  launched a sustainable forest management policy accompanied by a series of blogs that portrayed it as a responsible corporate citizen and the victim of mean, deceitful NGO campaigns. 

This, to be blunt, is a big fat lie

In late May, our investigations team caught one of APRIL's suppliers clearing dense rainforest and draining peatlands on Padang Island off the coast of Sumatra. In March, WWF and other NGOs caught APRIL destroying forest in north Kalimantan. APRIL had previously said the forest had high conservation value and would be protected, but then it redrew its maps and cleared the forest anyway.

Meanwhile APRIL's main competitor, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), put in place a 'no deforestation' policy more than a year ago, and recently committed to protect and restore one million hectares of forest.

APRIL's destruction is costing it business. Office supplies chain Staples used to stock APRIL's paper, but when we showed what APRIL was up to it agreed to stop. Antalis, another major paper company, says it won't buy from APRIL until it stops trashing forests.

Of course, all customers of RGE/APRIL, such as the world’s largest paper company International Paper, 3M, Premier Paper and US retailer Costco, should urgently follow their lead.

RGE/APRIL’s sustainable forest management is a disaster: more deforestation, more drainage of peatland, more lose of wildlife habitat and the risk of yet more forest fires. The evidence speaks for itself.

Until APRIL and all plantation companies in the RGE Group stop the bulldozers and implement a 'no deforestation' policy, everyone buying from these destructive companies is contributing to one of the worst environmental crises in the world.

And find out how to debunk the six biggest myths APRIL keeps trying to get people to believe.

Update: we've published an advisory for APRIL customers explaining why they should suspend contracts. 

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