The Indonesian Rainforest is some of the richest habitat in the world, home to many rare species of animal including tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans. Over 72% of this precious habitat has now been destroyed. Most of this destruction has been created by clear felling the forest for paper.
One of the greatest offenders in this respect is Asian Pulp and Paper (APP). Indah Kiat, a subsidiary of this company, is accused of sourcing 75% of its pulp through clear felling rainforest. The Indonesian pulp and paper industry as a whole is corrupt, sourcing at least 40% of its product from illegal logging. Now APP is flooding the UK paper markets with its product to the extent that Friends of the Earth now estimate that half of the UK stationary suppliers are now using APP paper, often re-branded to disguise its dubious sources.
The APP itself is not a stranger to controversy. It has been accused of both human rights violations and environmental damage. It is reported to have cleared 3000 hectares of forest belonging to the Sakai indigenous people in Sumatra and on 3rd February, 2001, it was involved in serious clashes with Sakai villagers which left five people injured, two of which were seriously injured. The company also saw fit to detain 52 indigenous people prior to handing them over to local police. The APP is also involved in another damaging operation namely Borneo Pulp and Paper. This project has been given access to 600,000 hectares of forest and may force up to 20,000 indigenous Iban people off their land.
It is not just this wretched company that is responsible for the flooding of the UK markets with environmentally destructive and possibly illegally obtained paper. Companies far closer to home have also colluded in this practice. Many of the biggest UK paper distributors, including Spicers, Kingsfield Heath and Robert Horne, continue to buy in paper supplies from APP. Friends of the Earth also reveal that many well-known banking industries also continue to fund the APP, particularly Barclays and Nat West who have helped to arrange over one billion dollars in loans to this insidious company.
Friends of the Earth want to make independent certification of any imported timber product mandatory. They say that unless a paper supplier can prove that such paper did not come from an enviromentally destructive source, it should be illegal to sell it in the UK. They also demand that financial institutions like Barclays and Nat West stop funding paper and pulp operations in Indonesia and Malaysia until they have accertained that the APP's fibre supply is sustainable.
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