Sustainable Fiber Resource Management

While we believe that sustainability encompasses everything that we do to ensure our capability to endure as an organization, it is inevitable given the nature of our business that the most palpable, if not critical, measure of our commitment is in the area of our fiber plantation operations.

A fundamental premise of our business is our ability to develop renewable, cost-competitive, and high-quality fiber supply from our own and our partners' plantation development efforts. The key, however, is in the manner with which this is done and it is in this area that we understandably generate a lot of critical interest from our stakeholders.

With the continued threat of forest destruction caused by illegal logging, APRIL offers the Mosaic Plantation Concept - the sustainable alternative for the development of these resources through active management intervention.

APRIL develops unproductive lands into fast-growing fiber plantations that generate renewable raw material for our pulp and paper mills. Under the Mosaic Plantation Concept, biodiversity reserves and other environmental values are conserved in the concessions, while generating wealth, employment and other social development opportunities for the local people.

As the first to achieve certification for Sustainable Plantation Forest Management under the Indonesian Eco-labeling Institute, we affirm our leadership in driving best-practice plantation management in the region. Our health and safety practices were audited and certified in 2005 by SGS as compliant with the OHSAS 18001:1999 standards.

At end 2008, APRIL planted over 120 million seedlings and rooted cuttings, which sequester about 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

To help us meet the demand for fiber, we have set up joint venture arrangements with other concession owners and also developed the Community Fiber Farms. Together with these partners, we plant the fiber estates with Acacia, a pulpwood species that matures at six years (compared to 40 years or longer for pulpwood trees in temperate climates). While fiber plantation development is in progress, APRIL continues to use mixed hardwood (MHW) fiber from land preparation activities in our own concessions and those of joint-venture partners.