Asia Pulp & Paper misleads public about its role in destroying Indonesia rainforests

By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.com 
16 December 2011 Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) continues to mislead the public about its role in destroying rainforests and critical tiger habitat across the Indonesian island of Sumatra, alleges a new report from Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of Indonesian environmental groups including WWF-Indonesia. But APP is sharply contesting the claims. The report, titled The truth behind APP’s Greenwash [PDF], is based on analysis of satellite imagery as well as public and private documentation of forest cleared by logging companies that supply APP, which is owned by the Indonesian conglomerate, Sinar Mas Group (SMG). The report concludes APP’s fiber suppliers have destroyed 2 million hectares of forest in Sumatra since 1984, including 675,000 ha of “critically endangered” and “endangered” forest, 550,000 ha of tiger habitat, 240,000 ha of elephant habitat, and 1,500 ha of orangutan habitat. It notes that APP concessions still threaten more than 300,000 ha of endangered forest. Eyes on the Forest uses this data to debunk APP’s claimed commitment to conservation. APP has recently stepped up a campaign to market itself as a responsible steward of the environment that protects endangered tigers, elephants, rhinos, and orangutans.
“This is clear proof that the global advertising claims of APP that it actively protects Sumatran tiger are highly exaggerated”, Anwar Purwoto of WWF said in a statement. The report alleges that a tiger sanctuary APP claims to have created is actually 86 percent owned by an unrelated company. It also says APP tried to block the creation of the proposed Senepis National Park, while one of its suppliers is currently clear-cutting the area of the sanctuary that represented APP’s “only real contribution” to tiger conservation. “It’s appalling that APP is pulping even the small blocks of forest it had told the world it would protect as tiger habitat,” Hariansyah Usman of WALHI Riau said in a press release. “This report shows a different picture to this and other, much-touted APP ‘conservation projects.'” However APP denied it cleared any forest within the Senepis Tiger Sanctuary. “Senepis is exclusively a private sector partnership between APP and PT Diamond Raya providing the total land area of the sanctuary,” an APP spokesperson told mongabay.com. “The suggestion made by EoF/WWF that APP is clearing their contribution to the sanctuary is completely false and is substantiated by the official government maps.” APP released a map showing the geo-referenced points cited in WWF’s report laying outside what APP said was its contribution to the tiger sanctuary. “The government map which we have released today clearly shows that EOF’s pictures are from a legal pulpwood concession operated by one of our suppliers and not from inside the sanctuary,” said APP Managing Director Aida Greenbury in a statement. But WWF quickly responded to APP’s map, providing mongabay.com a letter from June 2006 in which APP lays out its commitment to the “Senepis Tiger Sanctuary”. “We used APP’s own ‘Proposed Senepis TCA Jun 06’ boundary in the map for our analysis, as the company’s public commitment to tiger conservation,” said WWF. “The boundaries, the only ones ever promulgated in public until APP’s riposte to our release … place the current clearing clearly within the boundaries signed off by APP in June 2006.” “APP is not refuting that it has pulped the tiger forest of the original government-proposed Senepis National Park,” WWF added. […]

WWF: Asia Pulp & Paper misleads public about its role in destroying Indonesia’s rainforests