APP Promises Conservation: Don’t Hold Your Breath

Sinar Mas Group’s Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), Indonesia’s largest and most controversial logger, made another promise this week. APP announced that one of the rainforest logging and conversion permits it controls (located in the globally significant peatland forests of the Sumatra’s Kampar Peninsula) will be re-licensed as a carbon conservation project. However, given the [...]

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Sumatra hunger strike: the last recourse for a forest community

Here in Riau, Indonesia, signs of the struggle to save the last of Sumatra’s forest is everywhere. Daily, the papers cover stories of timber and oil palm companies destroying forests, engaging in corruption, driving land conflicts, sponsoring violence, and marginalizing indigenous peoples. Today, on the way to a meeting with the local NGO Elang, I [...]

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Letter from Indonesian community threatened by pulp-and-paper

TELUK MERANTI COMMUNITY LETTER OF REJECTION TOWARDS RAPP COMPANY (APRIL) Regarding: UPHOLDING TELUK MERANTI COMMUNITY RIGHTS To the Honourable, President Director of RAPP company (April) With this, the community of Teluk Meranti subdistrict, based on our needs to the land located across the river or land intended to become a part of your company’s operational [...]

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