ArchivesEyes On The Forest

Forest clearance in areas with legally questionable concession licenses, including those obtained from officials convicted for or on trial for graft.

APRIL: APRIL and its supply partners strictly adhere to all Indonesian laws and regulations. Our forestry concession licenses have been received following all due processes. The vailidity of those licenses has been reviewed on numerous occasions by the proper authorities and found to be in order. APRIL has zero tolerance for corruption and makes each employee responsible for legal compliance through employment contracts and other company policies.

Forest clearance in violation of government spatial planning law and within Indonesia’s “deforestation moratorium area”.

APRIL: These accusations are categorically untrue. APRIL complies with all legal and regulatory requirements in our operations and in our application for forest concession licenses. APRIL has a strict policy of not sourcing wood from high conservation value areas or from areas designated by the government as being off-limits.

Our entire forestry and manufacturing operations are certified under international legality standards (Bureau Veritas Legal Origin of Timber), which assures that all wood that comes into our mill is from legal sources.

Forest clearance causing persisting social conflicts.

APRIL: Positive relationships with local communities are essential to APRIL’s long-term success.

APRIL works actively to establish and maintain ongoing relationships with local people who live in proximity to our plantation estates. APRIL’s management systems ensure that plantation development processes foster full respect for the dignity, culture, human rights, aspirations and natural resource-based livelihoods of indigenous peoples and other local people.

Business model based on generating GHG emissions from continuing peat drainage.

APRIL: APRIL is in the process of determining its carbon footprint and has collaborated with a number of expert scientific third parties to build the science on carbon and peatlands. Some of the studies conducted have indicated that carbon emissions in our concession areas are less than or certainly not more than the point at which we have been awarded our licenses.

Destruction of high conservation value forests.

APRIL: Indonesia has approximately 131 million hectares of forest estate. The Indonesian Government has zoned 53 million hectares as conservation and protected forests and about 78 million hectares for production forest development. All of APRIL’s wood supply comes from these development zones, on land that the Indonesian Government has licensed specifically for industrial plantation development (HTI).