Two years after Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) announced a new forest conservation policy, it has kept its pledge to halt forest clearing. Despite this, Indonesia’s forests are still disappearing.
APP is failing to stop deforestation and illegal activities in its concessions by other parties, a Rainforest Alliance audit has reported. It confirmed the findings by the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) and local NGOs.
Deforestation and illegal activities are ongoing even in areas already identified by APP as containing high conservation values and carbon stocks.
Aditya Bayunanda, Forest Commodity Leader WWF-Indonesia, said that although APP had halted its own forest clearing, not much had changed on the ground.
She said: “Forests continue to disappear, peat soils continue to be drained and social conflicts remain unresolved. The company has even failed to protect forests they are legally required to conserve.”
Progress is lacking on action to reduce the climate impacts of APP’s vast concessions on peat. The Rainforest Alliance audit confirmed that other than stopping new canal development APP has taken no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the draining of over a million hectares of peatland under company control.
WWF had welcomed APP’s 2014 announcement to restore and conserve one million hectares of tropical ecosystems beyond legal requirements.
“WWF has participated in numerous stakeholder meetings and task force activities since the announcement,” said Bayunanda. “These discussions have resulted in very little progress. There are no concrete plans on where forests will be restored or conserved, and with what financing.”
WWF commends APP for having invited Rainforest Alliance to audit its progress, and urges APP to act quickly and decisively to address the audit findings. WWF will also carefully study the audit findings and advise APP customers accordingly.
Photo credit: Department of Foreign Affairs/ CC BY 2.0
