One of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), has been convinced to end all logging of natural forests. The Jakarta-based company, which has 14 major companies in Indonesia and China and an annual capacity of 18 million tons of paper and pulp products, has received an endorsement by Greenpeace, long its rival, after signing a contract to log only certain timber lands this week.
APP’s owner and chairman, Teguh Ganda Wijaya, put his personal seal on the commitment–the first time he has done so on an environmental agreement. The move is expected to cost APP a significant amount of money, but, according to APP’s sustainability managing director, “We now want to be a true global player and true leader.”
APP, which has cleared an estimated 2 million hectares of tropical forest in Sumatra since 1994, will now log only plantation timber, according to the agreement. Its suppliers will be bound to stay clear of timber with high conservation value and carbon-rich peat swamps. They will also be required to obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from landholders upon opening new concessions.
Greenpeace had targeted APP for years in a campaign that cost the logging company over 130 customers. Recently, Disney, Mattel and Hasbro dropped APP due to the Greenpeace campaign.
Although Greenpeace has endorsed APP’s contract, the endorsement was qualified. Greenpeace’s lead forest campaigner in Indonesia, Bustar Maitar, said that Greenpeace would continue to “watch and monitor closely” APP’s activities. APP has broken environmental commitments in the past.
“We welcome this move, but we urge everyone to wait and see, after independent monitoring is done,” commented the pulp and paper manager of the World Wildlife Federation, an organization that has seen environmental commitments made by APP broken in recent years.
By Sid Douglas