Investigative Report english version march 2008

Eyes on the Forest (EoF) and many national and international NGOs have long been calling for Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) to stop further natural forest clearance in Riau and Jambi Provinces in central Sumatra. Investigations by EoF found that a new APP-supported logging highway is cutting into the heart of Sumatra’s largest peatland forest, a rare hydrological ecosystem that acts as one of the planet’s biggest carbon stores.     Today, EoF is particularly concerned that APP and affiliated companies could restart clearance of natural forest and destruction of deep peat soil any time this year in a globally recognized key conservation area -- one of the world’s largest contiguous tropical peat swamp forest blocks, with more carbon per hectare than any other ecosystem on Earth. The area is called Kampar peninsula in Riau.     The area is considered one of the last havens for the critically endangered Sumatran tiger, whose wild population is estimated to be down to just 400-500. An EoF investigation in February 2008 found footprints of tigers on a just-constructed logging highway that APP built in Kampar.    Eyes on the Forest demands that APP immediately halt all activities that are destructive, strongly indicated as illegal, and legally questionable in the landscape.