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| Friends of the Earth Finland, 11 April 2006 UPM & Indonesia - 9 years of rainforest destruction The Finnish-based forest giant UPM continues co-operation with APRIL, the notorious Singapore-based pulp & paper company. The operations of APRIL's pulp & paper mill in the state of Riau (Sumatra, Indonesia) are based on raw material from the Sumatran rainforests. The co-operation begun in 1997, when UPM entered an alliance with APRIL. UPM is still one of APRIL's main clients. Moreover, APRIL holds a USD 121 million loan from UPM. The collateral of the loan is a share of APRIL's pulp mill in Riau. APRIL is paying the loan back to UPM by supplying UPM's fine paper mill in China by pulp from the Riau pulp mill. The loan and the supply contract are due on December 31, 2006. The loan has been extended already several times. It remains unclear whether the pulp deal will continue after this year. The forest co-ordinator Zulfahmi from Indonesian NGO Jikalahari has been working for years in order to prevent rainforest destruction by APRIL. - UPM is financing APRIL and using its pulp, so it has to bear responsibility for these actions. UPM should not buy pulp from APRIL as long as APRIL continues clearing rainforests, states Zulfahmi. APRIL continues acquiring new forest concessions. For instance in the Kampar Peninsula, in the east coast of Sumatra, the company tries to acquire some 200 000 hectares of peat swamp forest. The peninsula - the total forest cover of which is some 400 000 hectares - is one of the largest lowland forests in western Indonesian and an important habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. Jikalahari has proposed a national park for the Kampar peninsula. - The biggest threat to the area are the logging plans of APRIL. The Kampar peninsula is far too valuable area to be destructed for short term interests of a pulp company, says Zulfahmi. Zulfahmi visited Finland as a guest of Friends of the Earth Finland in late March. The annual general meeting of UPM was held on March 22. |