Civil Society Open Letter About APP’s Recurrent Violation of Farmers’ Land Rights in Jambi, Indonesia Dear Madam/Sir, We are contacting you about the destruction of community food resources in the village of Lubuk Mandarsah, Tebo Regency, Jambi Province, Indonesia, perpetrated by PT. Wira Karya Sakti (WKS). WKS is an industrial pulpwood producer affiliated with Asia Pulp and Paper Sinar Mas (APP Sinar Mas), one of Indonesian main pulp companies. On the morning of 4 March 2020, a drone sprayed poison on the community’s rubber trees, vegetables, and palm trees. This is the way PT Wirakarya Sakti resolved its conflict with the local community: by jeopardising the safety of their food and livelihood in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis.

Some stakeholders quit Jambi Regional Social Working Group (KKSR), multi-stakeholders forum initiated by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), to resolve social conflict involving the corporate against communities in Jambi. They leave the working group due to disappointment on lack of progress and performance of APP-funded forum which consist of civil society organizations and government agencies, Gatra.com website reported in October.

Indra Pelani (23) of Lubuk Mandarsah was killed by security guards hired by APP’s sister company PT. Wirakarya Sakti (WKS) in Bukit Tigapuluh landscape, Jambi Province, Sumatra. The village has been in conflict with WKS for a long time over their land tenure for 3,000 ha.

On 5 September, APP published "Highlights of First Quarterly Progress Report" for its “Sustainability Roadmap 2020”, launched on 5 June 2012. Eyes on the Forest had analyzed the original Roadmap in “SMG/APP: The Pulping Continues”, calling it a roadmap to clear more natural forests in Indonesia. APP’s Roadmap failed to protect any additional natural forest while allowing its pulp mills to continue pulping Indonesia’s tropical forest unabated.

Our team was thrilled to discover 47 tiger images in our camera traps, from which we identified six unique individuals," said Karmila Parakkasi, who leads WWF's tiger research team in Sumatra. "That was the highest number of tigers and tiger images obtained in the first month of sampling we've ever experienced.

(TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta, 15 July, 2009)--Environment activists in Jakarta protested against a project to build transport access in a forest in Tebo Regency, in Jambi Province by a pulp and paper company on Wednesday and accused the company of breaching a conservation area.

In the wake of the deaths of six people from tiger attacks in Sumatra’s Jambi Province in less than a month, conservationists are calling for an urgent crackdown on the clearing of natural forest in the province as a matter of public safety.

(wwf.or.id)-- In July 2008, WWF Indonesia and WARSI traveled through Sumatra’s provinces of Riau and Jambi. They visited a group of the local tribe of Orang Rimba in the buffer zone of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. Only about 3000 members of this tribe survive mostly in Jambi.

The destruction of high biodiversity forest in Sumatra’s Bukit Tigapuluh landscape – including the extinction of the endangered Sumatran tiger, elephant, and orangutan- is now in front of our eyes.

Pekanbaru (EoF News)-- Residents of Lubuk Mandarsah, Tebo District of Jambi province, ran amok and burned 11 excavators and one car belong to PT Wira Karya Sakti (WKS), a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group or Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), as the pulp company first cleared three-year-aged oil palm plantation of a villager.

Riau NGO coalition calls Government to stop selling largest remaining natural forest block in Sumatra ’s Riau and Jambi: 130,000 hectares of Sumatran tiger and elephant forests under siege