4.1.2. The characteristics of APRIL's forests

Another aspect of APRIL's forestry practices is the qualitative deterioration of the concession forests. In order to understand the impact of plantation practices on natural forest environments better, we must take a comparative look at these two different types of forest.

Riau's natural forests can be divided into two main categories, the lowland evergreen rainforests and the peat swamp forests. The latter type is found mainly in the coastal regions. In addition, there are smaller areas of highland rainforests in Riau's hills as well as mangrove areas on the coast (Whitmore 1984, IUCN 1991). APRIL's concession areas are between 20 and 200 km from the eastern coast of Sumatra, including lowland evergreen forests as well as peat swamp forests.

The lowland evergreen forests are one of the most species-rich forest types in the tropics and home to numerous endangered species. Indonesia's western rainforests have some of the world's largest tree types with heights of over 80 m and diameters of over 5 meters (Soepadmo 1995, Whitmore 1984).

Tropical peat swamp forests are a much more rare globally than the lowland evergreen rainforests. The range of species found in the two forest types is clearly different. The swamp forests look outwardly somewhat similar to the lowland forests, becoming more sparsely wooded towards the centre of the swamp. Large forests of this kind can only be found on the Malay peninsula, on Borneo and Sumatra. Over half of these forests were originally to be found on Sumatra (9.7 million ha, 12 % of Sumatra's forest cover). Elsewhere in the world the swamp forest areas are much smaller. Sumatra's swamp forests are located mainly on the east coast, largely in the Riau province.