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4.1. The concession forests One of the central problems with APRIL's activities is the raw materials which the company uses in its plants. The Riau plant uses a method that has grown popular in the tropics, in which the necessary raw material is procured from plantations of fast-growing trees. In the case of APRIL's plant in Riau this means mainly monoculture plantations of acacia trees. APRIL has a number of so-called 'concession' areas reserved for this use, which tend to be wood-covered areas. As the pulp plant is founded before the concession areas are converted to plantations, the factory first uses wood from natural forests. Once the natural forest has been cut down, the area is converted into a tree plantation. This destruction of the natural rainforests is the most serious environmental impact of the pulp and paper plant.
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| APRIL's concession areas in Riau cover approximately 280 000 hectares. Even though there is no exact data available on how much of this area consists of natural forests, it can be assumed based on the available data that approximately 200 000 ha of the concession areas is or has been natural rainforest. [In the assessment carried out by the Swiss certifying company SGS, it was reported that 68%, i.e. 110 000 ha of APRIL's first concession area was natural forest (SGS, 1998). Based on the maps of the second concession area included in the report, the amount of natural forest in the second concession area looks to be over 70 %, as there are very few roads in the area and the area is more remote.] Over 50 000 ha had been converted into plantations by the winter of 1998, i.e. at least 35 000 ha of rainforest had already been destroyed. Approximately 170 000 ha of the concession areas have been estimated as being suitable for conversion into plantations (SGS, 1998). |  |
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characteristics of APRIL's forests
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