4.1.7. "APRIL functions as a buffer between the migrants and the forests"

APRIL's factory in Riau is a so-called PIR-TRANS project, which means that it is part of the Indonesian government's official transmigration programme. Transmigration is one of Indonesia's most controversial policies (see for example DTE 2/99; Setiakawan 7.-9.1992). Transmigration is also one of the central causes of deforestation in the country (IUCN, 1991; WALHI et al., 1992).

One of the official and most publicised functions of the tree plantations is, as APRIL puts it, to act as a buffer or barrier zone between the villages of the migrants and the natural rainforests. However, plantations are hardly a useful way of protecting forests. The plantations themselves are founded on what used to be a natural forest, opening the way for further destruction and causing secondary destruction of forests by forcing people who used to live in and off the forests to move to new areas. In addition, the plantations are off limits to the migrants, i.e. they can not cultivate the land, nor use it to get firewood or timber for construction, for hunting or use it in any other way. Even entering the plantations is often forbidden. Thus the migrants are forced to use other areas for their daily needs and the population pressure often forces them to use natural forests.