PEKANBARU, INDONESIA, 3 JUNE 2021 -- A new report published by the Eyes on the Forest (EoF) coalition today reveals that only 14% (0.8 million ha) of oil palm plantations in Indonesia’s top palm oil producing province, Riau, can be considered legal. EoF advises buyers that the remaining 86% of Riau’s oil palm plantations must be considered illegal until detailed field verification has proven otherwise.

PEKANBARU, 3 JUNI 2021 – Laporan investigasi terkini diterbitkan koalisi Eyes on the Forest hari ini yang mengungkapkan hanya 14% (0,8 juta hektar) kebun sawit di Provinsi Riau –penghasil produk sawit terbesar di Indonesia—yang bisa dianggap legal. EoF menyarankan para pembeli produk sawit bahwa 86% kebun sawit Riau harus dianggap ilegal, hingga verifikasi lapangan rinci bisa membuktikan hal sebaliknya.

Pekanbaru, 30 April 2021--Koalisi Eyes on the Forest (EoF) mengecam keras pemberian izin lingkungan untuk kegiatan pengembangan kapasitas Riau Komplek PT RAPP milik Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) dan meminta Pemerintah melarang pembukaan hutan alam oleh perusahaan demi mendapatkan kayu keras campuran (mixed tropical hardwood) untuk operasinya.

Kebakaran lahan PT Arara Abadi di Desa Merbau, Kabupaten Pelalawan yang terjadi pekan lalu menyita kemarahan pembela lingkungan hidup. PT Arara Abadi, pemasok bahan baku untuk Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), diduga sengaja melakukan pembakaran lahan seluas 83 hektar untuk ditanami kembali dengan akasia.

Tersangka kasus Karhutla PT Teso Indah yang terjadi pada tahun 2019 lalu akhirnya dijatuhi vonis di awal Juli 2020. Sutrisno dinyatakan bersalah melakukan tindak pidana kebakaran hutan dan lahan (karhutla) PT Teso Indah (TI), dan dihukum 16 bulan penjara.

Eyes on the Forest coalition have launched its compilation book on investigative reports one month ago, 23 October.

At least four pulpwood suppliers and three palm oil plantations named suspects for allegations on Riau wildfires in June-July 2013. Some of these suspected companies are timber suppliers to Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resource International Limited (APRIL), a newspaper report said this week.

As the man-made catastrophe of forest fire and haze returns to Riau, citizens of Pelalawan have to leave their homes and be on the alert to prevent fire coming to their remaining land, while some students fainted as schools closed in the district and the province’s capital city.

Fires hotspots likely got its peak this month on Tuesday (27 August) seeing the 5th largest number of hotspots (758) recorded since 1 June this year, as 26% of that found inside the Tesso Nilo complex.

As APRIL has been officially banned from using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) trademark, leading environmental groups WWF, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) have called on other forest industry certification schemes to cut ties with the giant deforester.

Sumatra’s Riau province is suffering Indonesia’s worst fire season in recent years with serious smoke choking the region and neighboring Singapore and southern Malaysia. Eyes on the Forest has been tracking forest and land cover change and those who drive it in Riau since the early 1990s.

At least 6772 fires hotspots were detected accumulatively in Riau Province in period of 1-23 June 2013, based on MODIS Fires satellite monitoring that analyzed by Eyes on the Forest this week.

Riau Governor Rusli Zainal finally was detained by Corruption Eradicatio Commission (KPK) yesterday for allegedly “abusing power to make money for himself and other people or a corporation” by legalizing five-yearly logging plans to some timber suppliers in Pelalawan and Siak Districts between 2001 – 2007, KPK press release said.

Despite a restoration program organized by a company affiliated to pulp giant in Kampar Peninsula, Riau province, launched and endorsed by the Ministry of Forestry, environmentalists criticized it as a manuoevre by wo-faced company which merely seek benefit from credit carbon scheme.

Eyes on the Forest investigation last month found natural forest clearing in concession of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) supplier, PT Riau Indo Agropalma (RIA), in Kerumutan forest block, an important Sumatran tiger habitat in Riau province.

A latest investigative report by Eyes on the Forest coalition is published today focusing on APP deforestation and its link to deadly human-Sumatran tiger conflict in Riau Province of Sumatra.

Fifteen wild Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau province since January this year following the deaths of three female elephants in Tesso Nilo forest block as officials believed they were poisoned.

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.

Eyes on the Forest coalition says that over 1.2 million hectares of remaining forests in Riau are in danger of being cleared by Sinar Mas Group/Asia Pulp & Paper’s “independent suppliers” who can continue to deliver natural forest wood to the company’s mills. EoF published its latest report today analyzing “sustainability roadmap” that announced by SMG/APP recently.

At least 30 European non governmental organizations filed a petition submitted to governments calling not to fund forest destruction in Sumatra as Asia Pulp & Paper plans to build a new pulp mill in South Sumatra.

Eyes on the Forest coalition is proudly presenting new powerful map that granted by Google Earth Outreach and this project which “is one of the first to be awarded a grant by the Google Earth Outreach team to use Google Maps Engine, a platform for hosting, storing and managing map data.”

Eyes on the Forest coalition last week published an investigation conducted last year in PT Artelindo Wiratama, an affiliated company to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), that located in Bukit Tigapuluh landscape.

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) claims of independent sustainability certification for its operations aren’t supported by the certification schemes and assessors it has nominated, a WWF survey has found.

Former Riau Forestry Service Head and Ex Kampar District Head, Burhanuddin Husein, was detained by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in Jakarta yesterday, for accusation of misusuing his authority in issuing logging licenses for pulpwood conversion in Pelalawan District during 2005-2006.

A document released today by Eyes on the Forest confirmed that a supplier to paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper is clear felling natural forest the company designated as tiger sanctuary.

An Eyes on the Forest investigation finds that a wood supplier of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has been clearcutting tropical forest inside the Senepis Tiger Sanctuary in Sumatra – a sanctuary that APP advertises globally as part of its purported commitment to tiger conservation.

Satellite data for the first six months of 2009 show that Riau Province had the largest number of fire “hotspots” in Indonesia: 4,782. And nearly one-quarter of the Riau fires happened within concessions affiliated with Sinar Mas Group’s Asia Pulp & Paper company.

Data satelit selama enam bulan perama di tahun 2009 menunjukkan bahwa Provinsi Riau memiliki jumlah titik api kebakaran terbanyak di Indonesia, yakni 4.782.

Kebanyakan insiden konflik antara manusia dan harimau di Provinsi Riau dalam kurun 12 tahun terakhir telah terjadi di dekat kawasan hutan yang ditebangi oleh perusahaan-perusahaan kelompok raksasa pabrik kertas Asia Pulp and Paper (APP)/Sinar Mas Group (SMG), demikian menurut analisa data konflik manusia-harimau.

Komitmen Indonesia yang baru diumumkan untuk menyelamatkan hutan alam Sumatera pada Kongres Konservasi Dunia IUCN dua pekan lalu menghadapi ujian awal, menyusul terungkapnya aktivitas salah satu perusahaan kertas terbesar dunia, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP)/Sinar Mas Group (SMG).

In an investigative report published today by Eyes on the Forest, evidence shows that a new logging road in Riau Province -- strongly indicated as illegally built by companies connected to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) -- is cutting into the heart of Sumatra’s largest contiguous peatland forest, a rare hydrological ecosystem that acts as one of the planet’s biggest carbon stores.

Dalam sebuah laporan investigasi yang dipublikasikan hari ini oleh Eyes on the Forest, bukti-bukti menunjukkan bahwa perusahaan-perusahaan gabungan Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) belum lama ini membuka sebuah jalan logging yang memotong jantung hutan gambut penting di Semenanjung Kampar, Riau.

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

Several NGOs are calling on the Government to stop granting concessions for conversion and land clearing on peatlands, citing data that shows the major factor inciting this year's forest fires is forest conversion, mainly on peat soil sites.