ProPrint Webcast: A indústria de papel e celulose Indonésia pode ser sustentável?
Com sede em uma das regiões mais desafiadoras do mundo, a Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) surgiu como um grande nome mundial no setor de indústrias de papel e celulose nos últimos anos, mas continua a ser o foco de críticas por parte de ONGs ocidentais preocupadas com o desmatamento na Indonésia. Entre as alegações são de que ela se envolve em práticas florestais ambientalmente destrutivas, desmatando vastas áreas de floresta e está destruindo o habitat de espécies ameaçadas de extinção.
A APP diz que é cometida para além do cumprimento de uma produção sustentável.
Em uma entrevista histórica, o editor da ProPrint Steve Crowe, conversa com Aida Greenbury, Diretora de Sustentabilidade e Engajamento da APP, em um webcast transmitido ao vivo. Clique aqui e assista ou leia abaixo a entrevista completa.
Steve Crowe: For our first webcast, and with global warming and Copenhagen grabbing headlines everywhere, we thought we'd like to explore one aspect of the role the pulp and paper industry might play in the global effort to reduce carbon emissions. Forests and forestry will probably play an important part in any carbon emission trading schemes or other things, and deforestation I think will be a hotter topic than ever, as time goes by.
Mention deforestation and Indonesia doesn't take long to come into the conversation. One of the country's largest companies, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is often cited as one of the villains of deforestation in Indonesia. Is that really the case? Our guest today is Aida Greenbury, director of sustainability and stakeholder engagement at APP. Ida has agreed to answer our questions and yours on the company's activities.
This is an interactive webcast, and we'd like you to participate. If you'd like to ask Aida a question, please email it to us, or pass it on to your webcast moderator.
Before we start, a few quick facts about Indonesia. It's an archipelago of over 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. It's also a country of about 250 million people, many of whom live in relative poverty. It's concerted push for economic growth has seen it listed as only one of two Asian countries who posted positive growth figures this year. China of course was the other one. It's also listed as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after the USA and China. So any efforts that Indonesia can take to reduce emissions would play a significant role in reducing the worldwide effect.
Hello Aida, thanks very much for joining us. First of all I'd like you to explain your role at Asia Pulp & Paper.
Aida Greenbury: I'm director of sustainability and stakeholder engagement at Asia Pulp & Paper Indonesia. My role is to design a sustainability strategy and implement it throughout the company, based on inputs from a variety of stakeholders worldwide.
SC: Can you also explain who Sinarmas is and Asia Pulp & Paper's role in it, or how it fits into Sinarmas?
AG: There's a lot of misunderstanding about what's going on between Sinarmas and Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Sinarmas is not a company, it's not an entity, though the founding father of Asia Pulp & Paper, or APP, started several companies in the earlier years, and he referred the companies that he started, which had a common ownership as Sinarmas group companies, but over the years there are a lot of changes in the shareholder structure, so it's not really relevant any more.
SC: So is APP actually involved in logging activities itself?
AG: No, APP Indonesia represents a brand name of paper products. It also represents production facilities in Indonesia, namely Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper, Lontar Papyrus Pulp & Paper, Pindo Deli Pulp & Paper, Tjiwi Kimia Pulp & Paper, and Ekamas Fortuna. We do not own or manage any forestry concessions in Indonesia or elsewhere.
SC: Okay, so where do you source raw materials then?
AG: It depends on what you're asking when you say 'raw material' - pulp or woodchips. For pulp wood, we source 100% of our pulp wood supply from Indonesian suppliers, and for pulp, we get 50% of our pulp supply from Indonesian suppliers and 50% of it is a combination between recycled material and imported pulp from the world market.
SC: Do you acknowledge that APP has a very poor environmental reputation around the world?
AG: I doubt that. APP has a very good reputation in a lot of countries, because, we in Indonesia, we export most of our products all over the world. We have a very good reputation and a very good quality, and also the products and the service itself, but yes, I acknowledge that there are several parties who have some concerns about our environmental practise.
SC: Do you acknowledge that APP and Sinarmas have pursued unsustainable forestry practises in the past?
AG: I wouldn't say that we practise something unsustainable - but we're not perfect. Nobody is perfect. When the Western industries developed the first pulp wood plantation, 100 or 200 years ago, they had no idea what sustainability meant. So yes, of course we're not perfect, and we are basing our sustainability in the forestry practice and also in the production facilities, based on the continual improvement.
SC: APP has had a very troubled relationship with numerous high-profile NGOs, including Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth and so on. All of those and others have alleged that some activities by APP are destructive, deceptive, illegal and even contrary to human rights objectives. Does the company feel that it's become a bit of a whipping boy for western NGOs?
AG: I like the term 'whipping boy'. Indonesia is a newcomer in the pulp and paper industry. We - Indonesia - only started the development of pulp and paper industry in the late '80s, and early '90s, as opposed to 100 or 200 years ago in a lot of Western countries in the Northern Hemisphere. So we are as a newcomer, we are subjected to a lot of scrutiny, environmentally and socially, as opposed to our competitors, the big-time players. So we are happy, because all this scrutiny will enable us to learn from the mistakes that have been done by our competitors, the other players around the world, and it's not very easy, because we operate in Indonesia, it's very crucial right now, especially during the discussion of climate change. Indonesia is under scrutiny for its deforestation practices and everything else. What we would like to convey to these Western NGOs, is that Indonesia is very unique and has its own social and environmental challenges that should be addressed with social and environmental principles, designed for Indonesia. For example the several NGOs that you referred to before, they are very active in promoting the principles that had been invented by the Western countries for example.
SC: So what you are saying is that you want to be allowed to make the same mistakes that Western countries have made over the last hundred years or so?
AG: Absolutely not. Like precautionary approach of high conservation value forest protection, we call it HCVF for example, is being implemented and is even part of the legality requirement by Indonesian government. It was never a legality requirement by a Western government 200 years ago when they first developed the pulp wood plantations, so that is where we learned from the past mistakes made by other players or other countries. Right now the Indonesian government already has a variety of precautionary approaches in developing pulp wood plantation for example. HCVF or high conservation value forest is only one of the many. Many of them are involving the indigenous community, human right aspects and others.
SC: A report by Indonesia's Centre for International Forestry Research last year, found that APP relies on the clearing of natural forests in Sumatra for 60% to 70% of its wood supply. Is that true, and does the company think that that figure is sustainable into the future?
AG: Is this CIFA isn't it? Centre for Forestry Research, that's CIFA?
SC: Yes.
AG: Yes, I've met personally several times with the CIFA researchers, and I have invited them several times to have a look at our operation closely, instead of relying on outdated information or data that they've been using. It's not true. In 2006 for example, 90% of our supplies are from sustainable pulp wood plantations, and in 2008, and 2009 our supplies of about 80% of pulp wood plantations.
SC: So where did that figure come from then, from the research centre?
AG: I believe they're using outdated information based on their research in 2001 or 2002.
SC: In 2007, APP was kicked out of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for allegedly not fulfilling FSC criteria. Why do you think FSC withdrew its certification from Asia Pulp & Paper?
AG: APP Indonesia's production facility, namely Tjiwi Kimia paper mill, has passed FSC audit, according to the protocol. It passed everything that enables us to use FSC logo in our products, just like many many other companies, who also passed the FSC audit. So we passed exactly the same audit as many other companies around the world. Then in the year 2007, I believe FSC decided that they're going to implement a draft policy, called Association Policy, that is basically preventing companies whose supply chain is in conflict with FSC principles to carry the FSC logo, which we have discussed several times with FSC in the past, and we have also officially sent several letters to them asking a solution, a workable solution, which they also demanded themselves - but we haven't heard any response back from them to date, and in addition to workable solutions between FSC and APP, we are also asking FSC to implement their Association Policy, for all other stakeholders worldwide consistently, which we have not seen until today. Which is the analysis of the whole supply chain.
SC: I've noticed that some of your plants have recently received LEI certification. It's largely unknown in Western circles. Could you possibly explain what LEI is, and is it as rigorous as FSC or PEFC?
AG: LEI stands for Ecolabelling Institute of Indonesia. It is a constituents-based organisation whose goal is to promote sustainable forest management in Indonesia. It has several chambers, within the constituents, they have several chambers. Its design is very similar to FSC. It has the community chamber, and NGO chamber, the eminent person chamber, which is very respectable academic usually, and also the business chamber. They started their operation in late 90s and becomes a standard setting body, in 2000 and they have been working really hard to promote sustainable forest management in Indonesia, and I believe they're the only body who really understand the social, and environmental and economic challenges in Indonesia. They did a joint protocol collaboration with FSC in early 2000 which ended in 2004. I believe LEI also signed another letter of intent with FSC another month ago, and right now LEI is also conducting a gap analysis assessment with PEFC to provide a road map for PEFC recognition in the near future. So I believe LEI wants to maintain its independence to be the credible sustainable forest management standard setting from Indonesia, but it also has an open-door policy to engage with other certification bodies, such as FSC and PEFC. Based on my knowledge that both FSC and PEFC really recognise the credibility of LEI, I think that it's just a matter of time before the markets from other different regions actually are fully accepting LEI. Their products are now already entering Japan, Europe and USA.
SC: Is it a full chain of custody certification?
AG: LEI issues two types of certifications that are really related the pulp and paper industry right now, which is sustainable forest management certification and chain of custody certification.
SC: APP and Sinarmas have been accused by seven NGOs of plans to carry out a large-scale logging operation in and around Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, endangering Sumatran tigers, and also orangutans released there by an Australian NGO. They also claim that APP has ignored requests to rule out purchasing from companies operating in a protected area. Is this true?
AG: I would like to reiterate that APP does not manage or own or log forest concessions. When we talk about Bukit Tigapuluh, which means '30 hills' in English. When we talk about Bukit Tigapuluh, let's have a look at the full picture. Look at the Bukit Tigapuluh landscape which it's been referred to by many environmental NGOs, is an area of 300,000 hectares in the province of Jambi in Sumatra. Inside the core, inside the Bukit Tigapuluh landscape, there is a 144,000 hectares of National Park, called Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. Around that national park there are so many different land uses allocated legally by the government, there is mining, agriculture, rubber plantation, selective logging, settlements and other industries.
In the south part and in the east part of Bukit Tigapuluh outside of Bukit Tigapuluh area, the land is allocated for production forests by the Government of Indonesia. So one of our suppliers was asked by the local government to develop an area, south of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, called Dalek Company, and Dalek used to be owned or managed by Selective Logging Concession, and it was abandoned for many years.
The land Dalek area, became a no man's land, it was unmanaged by anybody. Therefore, a lot of illegal activities started to encroach the area from the southern part of the landscape. Therefore the local government requested the Ministry of Forestry to ask one of our public suppliers to manage the area sustainably, to prevent further encroachment, which had proven to have led to forest fires and others, including poaching, and penetrate into Bukit Tigapuluh National Park.
So APP has not received any wood from Dalek, and we will not do so until further bio-diversity assessment is completed and approved by the Government of Indonesia.
The NGO, the Australian NGO has released an Australian zoo-bred orangutan called Tamara in the past to be reintroduced in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. They work together with another NGO in the south part of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park to run a program of orangutan reintroduction which were provided by the government - the licence was provided by the government to reintroduce the orangutan inside Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, but instead of releasing the orangutan inside the park, they released the orangutan in the production forest. Therefore they sent us an alarm that there is a reintroduction program in the area, that is why APP alerted the government that this is what is going on, and we asked the government to resolve the issues, and right now the decision is still pending, and we are waiting for that.
SC: Recently an investigation by WWF into the activities of APP in the Kampar Peninsula found evidence of the construction of an illegal road, in which tracks of the endangered Sumatran tiger were found. Is APP responsible for the building of this road?
AG: The building of that road north of Kampar Peninsula was planned to reach one of our suppliers in the north of Kampar Peninsula. The licensing of that road was given by the local government of Riau and was 100% legal to develop the surrounding rural area, and also to transport wood. But the most important thing is that that area, this is called PRP, that is the name of our suppliers there, intrigued us, and we ask several independent parties to further assess the bio-diversity and also underground carbon stock of that area in 2006/2007 - the result came out and convinced us that we should protect the area. So that's what we did. Based on the assessment result, we have set aside the area as a conservation area, since 2007, and we are talking to the government in ways to further protect the area for the sake of the carbon storage under the ground.
SC: Is APP associated with any activities to do with the draining and clearing of peat lands in Indonesia? There was recently a protest by Greenpeace about peat lands being drained. APP's name has been associated, is that true?
AG: It's true that Greenpeace is currently setting up camps in Kampar Peninsula - but I refer to my response before this, that we do not receive any wood from Kampar Peninsula - in fact one of our suppliers PRP has been set aside as a conservation area, so I don't understand why Greenpeace associate Kampar Peninsula with APP considering the fact that we don't receive any wood from the area.
To answer your first question about the peat land, it is true that about 60% of Riau Province is in lowland, which contains a certain degree of peat on the surface of the land and those areas happen to be allocated by the government for the pulp wood plantations, because those areas are not very fertile. The most fertile areas are usually allocated by the government of Indonesia for agriculture, the less fertile area degraded or wasteland area, is allocated further for plantation.
SC: Does APP have any plan for reducing its carbon footprint - do you have a plan in place to reduce your own carbon footprint?
AG: Absolutely. We have even been discussing it since 2005/2006, and APP started the first ever Socio-Carbon footprint assessment and it was completed in 2008, which let us know where we were - our carbon footprint in 2006 to support us with a baseline to know where we are and how to further reduce our carbon emission. Based on the assessment result, our carbon footprint was 1.5 tonne of carbon per tonne of paper, but we also found out that our plantation stock that will supply our power mill will also sequestrate around 33 tonne of carbon per hectare per year, which is quite interesting. To respond to a lot of people saying that cutting trees to make paper will release carbon, is not absolutely true. Trees, especially fast-growing trees, sequestrate a lot of carbon under the ground, like I said 33 tonne per hectare per year, but also when we cut down the trees, the trees are not actually released to the atmosphere. Some carbon is released of course, but the tree is actually being processed and the carbon is captured within the paper product itself, and as you know APP is also very actively promoting recycled paper, so the paper products in return will be recycled back into another paper product.
SC: I've noticed on your website that APP talks about numerous initiatives that you have taken in areas that you operate in education, training, housing and so on, but I can't find evidence of this anywhere else - I'm wondering is this all just 'greenwashing'?
AG: You just didn't try hard enough. [laughs] Actually a lot of people accuse us of 'greenwashing' every time we try to publish something. We are an Asian company. We are probably a bit shy of telling people what we've done in terms of CSR and environmental protection or we are more concerned with how to get things done. I'll give you an example. Earlier this year, UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere program finally approved our bio-diversity protection program in Riau. We set aside about 72,000 hectares of pulp wood suppliers into a conservation area, connecting to national park, one wildlife reserve into another national park, to form a contiguous large landscaped protection area. It is in total about 172,000 hectares, and finally UNESCO gave us the final approval earlier this year.
Did we talk much about it, because we'd been working really hard for this since 2004? Did we talk much about it? No. Did any NGO help us to achieve this? No. But we did it ourselves. This is our philosophy in APP. You just do it, you don't talk much about it, you just do it, make some achievement and get it done. But I understand that a lot of our customers get a little bit concerned about these facts, and therefore since about a year ago, we are working together with a very reputable risk management and PR firm, Weber Shandwick, to further convey our CSR environmental message to the world.
SC: But you've lost a lot of customers, or your representatives have lost customers over the last couple of years. There's Woolworths in Australia for example, Staples in the USA and Antalis in the UK - this effort to project a positive environmental image, is not really working is it?
AG: Well there are two things. Number one, we never announce to anybody when we gain more customers. APP is a business. It's a business entity, we lose customers and gain customers, on a daily basis. It's very common, there's no big deal about it. When we gain more customers we don't make any public announcements, that's for sure. For several companies who decided to disengage with APP, I respect their decision. We respect their decision. Mostly the companies you mentioned before, they choose to source material that are FSC-certified, but I just hope that they understand the impact of their action towards sustainable development in Indonesia. It is a fact that only 10% of the world's forests are certified. It is a fact that only less than 1% of the forest in Asia is FSC-certified. It is a fact that FSC principles cannot be implemented in pulp wood industry, pulp wood plantation development in Indonesia, because of their own principles, which are pro-Northern hemisphere countries.
Therefore these company's decisions to disengage with APP has huge impact, not only on APP, but on Indonesian sustainability development. I hope they understand that this means how many children are not supported by the companies. APP is supporting hundreds of thousands of families in Indonesia. Families of 35 million in Indonesia living below the poverty line around 100 million Indonesian people are living on $2 a day or less, and APP has been trying so much. We allocate $40m a year to support all this health care, education, training, skills, involving them in the development of the pulp wood plantation or the pulp and paper industry. This is the impact that whoever companies disengage with APP, this is the impact they make. I hope they understand the impact they have created towards the poverty alleviation programs in Indonesia.
We'll go to questions from the floor and online now.
Question from web, 'David in London': What do you say to the claims that APP would rather mount a PR offensive than really clean up its act?
AG: PR offensive you say. That is related to what I said earlier about every time we try to say something, everybody accuses us of green washing, maybe we just don't have to say anything - but then our customers are also unhappy about it, because we don't say anything about our achievement. Clean up our acts. It's business as usual for us, we always clean up our acts. As I said before everything in the pulp and paper industry of the sourcing of the raw material, we are basing everything on continual improvement. Nobody is perfect. No pulp and paper industry or any players in the world are perfect. What we can do is we address concerns that are raised to us. We really respect and appreciate the input that a lot of environmental NGOs and other parties have given us - and we can show that we are addressing their concerns. The legality issue for example, we address with an independent audit on an annual basis. Bio-diversity we address by the conservation set aside for the forest. I you refer to cleaning up our act, yes we do it on a daily basis. We do it on a daily basis based on the continual improvement initiative.
Question from audience, Philip Lawrence from Ecological Strategies: Aida, you mentioned briefly in one answer, 'rapid growth forests' and it struck a chord with me, because just over the last couple of years, your competitors in North America and Europe, have mentioned the difficulty they have in competing against rapid growth forests, along the equatorial zone. What is the special economic advantage that rapid growth forests have compared to say the Northern regions of the world, or even the southern regions of the world in terms of forestry. What does that mean from an environmental perspective?
AG: It can make an advantage to the industry itself quite a lot, because instead of waiting for 40 years to harvest the trees, we can harvest our pulp wood plantation in 5 to 6 years. Other economic benefit is that instead of depending on a large tract of plantation forest, we can now get by with a narrower, smaller size of the forest. Economic benefit for the community is huge as well, because we absorb more labour force, because of the short rotation. Environmental benefit is proven worldwide, that rapid growth plantation actually sequestrate more carbon than slow growth forest, you know, I think if I'm not mistaken it's between 10 to 30 times more than slow growth forest, so there is huge beneficial aspects in rapid growth forests for Indonesia.
Question from London: If many of the claims of NGOs are wrong, why doesn't APP take legal action against these NGOs?
AG: Well, we might - just joking. Look, we believe in constructive dialect. Until today, we don't change in our position that we have an open door policy. We will sit down with anyone, just like where I'm sitting down right now having interactive dialogue with everybody all over the world without any screening. We are open to have any dialogue with any NGOs, in fact we have been inviting a lot of environmental NGOs to sit down with us, and we would rather have constructive dialogue with environmental groups than confronting them in court, because I don't believe - you know when parties are fighting, we don't achieve anything. When we sit down and have constructive dialogue, at least we can achieve something. That is what we believe in.
SC: This is a question from Helen Morris, the environment reporter for Print Week in the UK, our sister publication, Why doesn't APP make its financial results public?
AG: We do actually. We have our financial report public. The production facilities under APP, they are, the majority are public-listed companies, so we do make an annual report, financial reports public. I can send her very quickly.
SC: Is APP looking to take part in industry consolidation in Europe?
AG: Define industry consolidation.
SC: I imagine it means are you interested in acquiring companies over in Europe, to broaden your reach?
AG: We always continue to analyse and study opportunities, not just in Europe but elsewhere. A very key thing, a most important factor for us, is access to sustainable raw material and clean energy source.
Question from Hong Kong: Some NGOs claim that APP has used tropical wood or tropical timber for paper production. Is this true, and if so, or if not, how would you respond to this, to your clients and to those NGOs?
AG: We always respond constantly according to what is required legally in Indonesia. Let's start from the beginning, because it might be quite complex, and I would like everybody to understand the full picture. Indonesia is a country of 191 million hectares of total land mass. About 40% of the total land mass is actually allocated by the government of Indonesia for agriculture, settlement and other commercial uses. 30% of the total land mass is identified as forest, with the highest conservation values and are protected, locked up, not to be developed. Another 30% is identified as forest with less value and is allocated as production forest, which means that the forest can be used for production.
The majority of this production of forest is classified as forest for selective logging. Only around 5% of this total land mass is actually allocated for pulp wood plantation development. Now before any development of any forested area, or wasteland or degraded land or any other land, this area is subjected to several assessments. Namely the Environmental Impact Assessment, and now since 2004, the government also implemented what we call a macro and micro delineation assessment, which basically the Indonesian protocol to identify and protect high conservation value forest.
Therefore if you have 100 hectares and there are actually degraded natural forest left in the area, this degraded natural forest will be assessed and if there are any high conservation values identified in this forest, then these high conservation values will be protected by law. That is stated in Indonesian decree, Indonesian Government decrees.
Areas with degraded forests or wasteland where not classified as having high conservation values, are allowed to be developed into pulp wood plantations. The mixed wood residues, or wood residues generated from this development is allowed, or even the government has obliged the pulp industry to take as the raw material.
So to answer your question before, that is there any tropical mix wood in the paper products. Yes, there are, very minimum right now, probably 20%, but there are mixed wood residues. Non high conservation value forests mixed residues. Under Indonesian law, we, as the pulp industry, is obliged to take in as the raw material, as opposed to leaving it in the forest, and generate methane, generate carbon emission, or generate disease outbreaks or fire outbreaks. So taking in as the raw material, is actually the most environmentally friendly on how to treat these wood residues.
SC: You said you've been allocated about 5% of land for pulp wood plantations. Is that going to be enough to sustain the industry into the future?
AG: The government of Indonesia currently allocated 5% of its total land mass for pulp wood plantation development, but it also has a plan in place to increase that to 10% for plantation development - not only for pulp wood, but for other industries as well.
SC: Will that be enough over the years to come to sustain the industry?
AG: I believe so, yes, more than enough.
Question from London: In December of last year, the Indonesian paper mill Riau Andalan Kertas, which is owned by one of your competitors, APRIL, this mill actually gained FSC certification. Now this person wants to know why can APRIL manage to gain FSC certification for one of its mills and APP can't?
AG: I can't speak on behalf of my competitor unfortunately, but as far as I know, they are qualified as FSC controlled wood, which we have been qualified as well, so there's no difference there - and as far as I know, they are not producing anything with FSC logo in it, because otherwise FSC would be in violation of their own Association Policy.
SC: What is the Giam Siak Kecil biosphere reserve?
AG: That was the 172,000 conservation area that I mentioned before. It's a conservation area that APP and its pulp wood suppliers set aside, using Man and the Biosphere concept under UNESCO, which is basically a concept to bring into harmony, the natural sustainable resource, sustainable socio economic development, while at the same time preserving the cultural and bio-diversity of the surrounding area.
Right now the Giam Siak Kecil has been approved by UNESCO Man and the Biosphere program earlier this year, and we have received a lot of academics to conduct research in the area, which in turn after their assessment is completed, we will try to come up with a management plan on how to manage the area sustainably for the benefit of the community, the people, and the industry involved.
SC: It is alleged that APP supplies some paper to certain markets without identifying APP as the source. Is this true?
AG: I don't really understand the question, because it's not possible, because right now all of our products are 100% traceable. You can't really supply anything, without traceability now, because everything is traceable. So it's not true I guess, but I don't really understand the question.
Question from Singapore: How do you go about protecting the 72,000 hectares of conservation area at Bukit Tigapuluh, who controls that land, and if you don't own it, how do you set it aside?
AG: 72,000 area inside Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. APP today, APP is committed to further help the local government and other parties to protect Bukit Tigapuluh National Park and the integrity of the natural forest that works as the buffer zone surrounding it. In fact in 2007/2008, we have signed an agreement with the local government, our suppliers have signed an agreement with the local government to further secure the area, and conduct socialisation to educate the local community, and also patrols to help control the illegal activity or poaching in the area.
Philip Lawrence from Ecological Strategies: The Scandinavian forestry and pulp and paper industry and also the North American pulp and paper industry talk about forestry as a natural resource and discuss regularly how they plant more trees than they harvest. In that context, what is APP's forestry or timber suppliers doing in that regard. Do they plant more trees than they harvest? How many trees do they plant? Where do they plant them? And where do the seedlings come from?
AG: Very good questions, nobody asked me that question before. APP's pulp wood suppliers in Indonesia, they manage an area, a gross area of around 2.4 million hectares. Around 1 million hectares of it is protected, which has a role for either community forest use, or indigenous species development, conservation forest use, and other related infrastructure. So in a net area, our suppliers only develop about 50% to 60% of the total gross area.
Out of the total net area, around 800,000 of it is actually pure afforestation of denuded wasteland. So using that area as a baseline, our suppliers are committed to plant around one million trees a day, target planning of total plantation next year is around 300,000 hectares for next year alone. Basically we plant two more trees, three more trees for every tree that we harvest, so it's quite aggressive afforestation program. Most importantly most of them are conducted in the denuded wasteland in Indonesia.
SC: Do you agree the plantations can't replace environmental value of bio-diversity found in natural forests?
AG: That is a very complex issue, I'm not sure if we have enough time. Yes and no. Because we have to have a look - when we want to assess something or analyse something, we have to have a look at the full picture, and not just taking one or two facts within the full picture.
It is a fact that certain area is allocated as pulp wood plantation in Indonesia, and it is a fact that unmanaged land, or no man's land in Indonesia will be illegally encroached. So what can we do to protect the area with the highest value, with the highest conservation values, to maintain the integrity of the natural forest? The best solution or the shortest way to answer this, is that pulp wood plantations actually serve as a buffer zone to protect the integrity of the natural forest, or conservation area, within its plantation. That is the shortest way to answer that.
Question from Singapore: How would you at APP persuade UK and US publishers that your adoption of PEFC helps towards sustainability?
AG: I guess everybody needs to learn our customers need to learn, need to understand what PEFC brings in, what FSC brings in, what LEI, what is the standard all about. Our APP position is to embrace all types of credible certification worldwide. We support LEI, which is a national initiative, a national standard. We fully support LEI, we support PEFC fully and we have already passed FSC chain of custody audit, that is a fact, and we would like to further embrace other types of certification. Every certification has weaknesses and strengths, and that's something we would like our stakeholders to fully understand as well.
To fully understand the weaknesses and strengths of its certification, FSC could be probably good to be implemented in Western countries where conversion has already been done 200 years ago, but not really suitable for pulpwood plantation development in the developing countries for example.
So everybody needs to learn and we need to educate each other and to embrace - certified products is better than non-certified products. Products which are under a face approach certification is better than not at all. So continual improvement is our motive.
SC: We've run out of time. Aida thank you very much for coming along today and answering our questions, and thank you very much to our live and online audiences for participating.
