ROBIN WOOD Press - Letter to Paper Union - Collaboration with April

ROBIN WOOD Pressemitteilungen

Re: Collaboration of Papier Union and APRIL
Dear Mr. Klippgen,

Despite severe and continuing criticism of the pulp and paper group APRIL
from environmental organisations across the world on account of its ruthless
forestry exploitation practices, your company is still doing business with
the group, instead of rejecting the use of products obtained from the
destruction of the rain forests. Only recently you repeated your position
that Papier Union would "in future continue to maintain a critical and
exacting dialogue in its relationship with APRIL".

The undersigned environmental organisations take the view that a leading
German paper wholesaler that claims to use only raw materials deriving from
sustainable forestry practices for its products, should not be purchasing
from a company that is turning the last rain forest areas of Sumatra into
timber plantations.
As your company is no doubt aware, the bitter truth about APRIL´s activities
is in fact extremely worrying. APRIL has already destroyed some 300,000
hectares of tropical forest and is planning to eradicate a further 200,000
hectares of tropical forest by 2009, in order to run the biggest pulp
factory in the world at full capacity. APRIL has driven local people from
their land and hired bands of thugs who have intimidated the local
population. The owner of APRIL, Sukanto Tanoto, is implicated in financial
scandals such as the bankruptcy of Unibank, which caused 230 million dollars
of damage to the Indonesian state, thus robbing his own country.

Furthermore, APRIL´s activities take place in a country where the
destruction of the forests is now out of control as a result of political
inaction, and where the last lowland rain forest will have disappeared
within a few years - by 2005 in Sumatra, according to the World Bank.

APRIL replaces the devastated forest with acacia plantations. Papier Union
has confirmed this: "According to current information around 35 % of APRIL´s
total timber requirement comes from acacia plantations." Around two thirds
of APRIL´s raw materials therefore derive from valuable natural forests.

According to information provided by your company, since March 2003 Papier
Union has only sourced its paper from APRIL plantation timber on state
forestry concessions. At first sight that may satisfy your company´s
environmentally conscious customers. In reality, however, the concessions
referred to were peddled off to business friends and relations by the
responsible political figures during the Suharto era. Your claim that APRIL
no longer sources timber from the Tesso Nilo, an area which is characterised
by a particularly wide variety of species, is also misleading, since this
area continues to be devastated by unlicensed loggers, who then remove their
illegal timber on roads maintained by APRIL. The group is now sourcing its
raw material from other equally valuable and sensitive rain forest areas:
the peat forest in the Riau lowland. The Indonesian peat forests are up to
20,000 years old, grow on peat layers up to 18 metres deep and contain up to
120 tree species per hectare.

In the last 1-2 years APRIL has destroyed around 50,000 hectares of peat
forest in the Pelalawan concession through its clearing activities. This
practice of the group infringes Indonesian laws (PP7, 1990, SK 162, 2003, SK
200, 1994, PP 47 1997) that prohibit the conversion of productive forest
into plantation, as well as any logging of forest areas with a peat layer of
more than three metres because of the danger of forest fire. An
investigation of species diversity by the University of Bogor found that
this area contained amongst other species the Sumatra tiger, five species of
monkey, at least 78 bird species and seven protected tree species (e.g.
Ramin). Through the construction of an 800 km canal network, the group has
drained a large area of an ecosystem that is at great risk of fire in dry
periods. As Papier Union should be aware in its role as a supposedly
"critical" partner, APRIL has withheld the results of the Bogor
investigation from the public. There is evidence that APRIL wishes to
eradicate a further 50,000 hectares of neighbouring peat forest.

In general we see little chance that your company can, through adopting a
"critical relationship", exercise a positive influence on a group that
intends to maintain its production for years to come through the destruction
of tropical forests. APRIL doesn´t intend to cut back production but to
expand it - and that in the country with the fastest rate of forest
destruction in the world, where even now there are insufficient raw
materials to satisfy the demands of those industries requiring timber.

We therefore urge Papier Union to end its collaboration with APRIL
immediately and to stop buying products from this company until it ceases
further clearing of natural forests, respects community rights to land,
including restoration of lands taken from the community without their free
and informed consent, and controls all illegal and destructive activities
associated with its operations.

We shall continue to inform the German public, specifically in the area of
paper use, of the catastrophic consequences for the people and the natural
environment of Sumatra that are associated with the purchase of paper from
APRIL production.

Yours sincerely

Reinhard Behrend
Rettet den Regenwald e.V.

Longgena Ginting
WALHI - Friends of the Earth Indonesia

Peter Gerhardt
Robin Wood e.V., Bereich Tropenwald

Sandra Pfotenhauer
Campaignerin Wald, Greenpeace e.V.

Rivani Noor Machdjoeri
Community Alliance for Pulp Paper Advocacy (CAPPA), Indonesia

Alexander Markovski
Student Protection Organization of Karelia (SPOK), Russia

Andrey Laletin
Friends of the Siberian Forests (FSF), Russia

Rully Syumanda
WALHI Riau, Indonesia

Greg Higgs
Forest Action Network, Canada

Jutta Kill
FERN, UK

Valerie Vauthier
Resource Extraction Monitor (REM), UK

Hanna Østby Stub
Natur og Ungdom, Norway

Matti Ikonen
Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, Finland

Chris Lang,
Germany

Tove Selin
Finnish ECA Reform Campaign, Finland

Jim Ford
ForestEthics, USA

Hanne Brown
Rainforest Foundation, Norway

Alexander Dubynin
Siberian Environmental Center, Russia

Larry Lohmann
The Corner House UK

Mandy Haggith
worldforests Scotland

Sylvia Franssen
FERN Belgium

Rudy Lumuru
Sawit-Watch, Indonesia

Bernhard Henselmann
EarthLink, Germany

Warren Barry Ashopenace
Grassy Narrows First Nation, Canada

Feja Lesniewska
British Rusian Eco-cultural Network UK

Solveig Firing
Lunde Natur og Ungdom Norway

Otto Miettinen
Friends of the Earth Finland Finland

Dmitry Aksenov
Socio-Ecological Union Russia

Irina Zaytseva
KBCC Russia

Bill Ritchie
worldforests Scotland

Saskia Ozinga
FERN The Netherlands

Hanna Matinpuro
Finnish Association for Nature Conservation Finland

Nils Hermann Ranum
Rainforest Foundation Norway Norway

Lydia Bartz
urgewald Germany

Hermann Edelmann
Pro Regenwald

Wolfgang Kuhlmann
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Regenwald und Artenschutz

Klemens Laschefski
BUND

Markus Schneider-Johnen, Eine-Welt-Promotor
Eine-Welt-Forum Mönchengladbach e.V.

John Künzli
Verein für die Völker des Regenwaldes, Bruno-Manser-Fonds, Basel

Ewald Lorenz-Haggenmüller
Weltladen Kempten - für Eine Welt e.V.

Günther Peter
Aktionsgemeinschaft Artenschutz (AgA)

Jupp Trauth
forum ökologie & papier

Heinz Peter Vetten
MANDACARU - Menschen leisten Widerstand

Julia Ratzmann
Pazifik-Informationsstelle

Martin Hirte
Arbeitskreis Lebensstile/Eine Welt der AGENDA 21-Gruppe Herrsching,

Elisabeth Kreuz
Indienhilfe e.V.

Alexandra Prinz
Naturschutzjugend im LBV

Bernhard Lohr
Faszination Regenwald e.V.

Heinrich Kattenbeck
Bund Naturschutz, Kreisgruppe Forchheim

Boris Thiemig
BOS Deutschland e.V., Primaten helfen Primaten.

Dr. Sandra Altherr
Pro Wildlife e. V., München

Bärbel Wallner
"Für Frauen in Flores e.V."