APRIL Group manages its conservation areas and plantations based on a landscape approach.

"Farms, forest, water bodies and settlements are not isolated elements but part of a wider landscape in which all land uses are integrated. This entails viewing and managing multiple land uses in an integrated manner, considering both the natural environment and the human systems that depend on it."
- Global Landscape Forum -

More than 20 years of experience managing land in Indonesia has taught us that forest areas, be it conservation forest or other types of forest, that are not actively monitored and managed, are vulnerable to significant degradation by human encroachment and illegal logging. Examples of such degradation could be found at various forest areas that remain unmanaged. Most are severely encroached, burned and degraded during the annual dry season.

Since 2005, we have voluntarily identified and protected 250,000 hectares of High Conservation Value (HCV) forest prior to plantation establishment, with assessments carried out by third party assessors. This is unprecedented in Indonesia’s forestry sector and beyond the national legal requirements for industries operating in the forestry sector.

HCV assessments identify and delineate exceptionally important biodiversity values, ecosystem elements and social or cultural values and recommend management and monitoring activities to maintain and enhance these values.

APRIL Group has found the HCV concept and process to be a valuable landscape management tool. We identify and delineate additional values that may result in the conservation of further areas of natural forest to mitigate the degradation of biodiversity, and to protect important areas that have environmental, social and cultural value to local communities.

The guidance and recommendations from HCV assessors enable our planners to implement best practices and achieve sustainable wood production through a rational balance of environmental conservation, social concerns and economic development imperatives.

It is important to recognize that HCV concepts and practices in Indonesia acknowledge that one or more forms of active management can be undertaken to ensure the maintenance or enhancement of one or more high conservation values in an area.

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RESTORASI EKOSISTEM RIAU (RER):

restorasi ekosistem riau

APRIL Group, in partnership with Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and local social development non governmental organization BIDARA, manages more than 40,000 hectares of ecologically important peat forest as a biodiverse forest reserve area on the Kampar Peninsula and at Pulau Padang. This multi-year ecosystem restoration program employs an integrated scientific approach with permanent resources and expert capabilities. The project involves communities living nearby the area as part of a broader vision to protect larger sections of the Kampar Peninsula core through a landscape level approach to conservation.

Moreover, APRIL Group continues to work towards its 1-for-1 goal, where it will conserve 1 hectare for every hectare planted, as committed to in its SFMP.

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