Sumatra Deforestation, 1995-2009. SMG/APP associated concessions, natural forest remaining in 2008/2009, and natural forest lost since 1995 in the Eyes on the Forest study area. Eyes of the Forest / WWF-Indonesia

Eyes of the Forest analyzed government concession data and EoF’s own remote sensing analysis and field investigations of almost 1.2 million hectares of SMG/APP associated concessions in its mostly Riau study area covering close to 940,000 hectares of HTI (industrial timber plantation) concessions and around 45,000 hectares of a HPH selective logging concession that allows clear-cutting (PT. Mutiara Sabuk Khatulistiwa) in Riau, which supplied or may supply MTH to APP’s Indah Kiat pulp mill; and almost 200,000 hectares of HTI concessions in the Bukit Tigapuluh landscape in Jambi which supplied or may supply MTH to APP’s Lontar Papyrus pulp mill. Between 1995, when SMG/APP wood suppliers started to obtain concession licenses, and 2008/2009, the last year for which Eyes on the Forest analyzed these data (Map 2, Appendix 2) 45, SMG/APP wood suppliers

  • caused the destruction of around 320,000 ha and 355,000 ha of critically endangered and endangered forest types, respectively.
  • caused the destruction of around 550,000 ha of tiger, 240,000 ha of elephant and 1,500 ha of orangutan range forests. IUCN lists all three species as critically endangered.

SMG/APP operations in its known concessions in the study area still threaten

  • around 100,000 ha critically endangered and 210,000 ha endangered forest types, and
  • around 320,000 ha tiger, 120,000 ha elephant and 2,000 ha orangutan range forest.

Yet this is only part of the story. APP states that “APP’s pulpwood suppliers manage 2.5 million hectares of gross land47”. That is more than double the area Eyes on the Forest analyzed for this report. In addition, SMG/APP has been pulping MTH from outside the land they manage. The impact of this company and its destruction of natural tropical forests is thus much higher than reported here based on a limited study area.

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