- APRIL’s decision to lower its deforestation cutoff date and source wood from two companies associated with extensive recent forest loss in Indonesia is drawing fresh scrutiny of its efforts to re-enter the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
- FSC told Mongabay it is reviewing APRIL’s updated sourcing policies and said it was “concerned” that such an analysis had become necessary.
- Environmental groups say accepting suppliers linked to extensive recent deforestation undermines the spirit of FSC’s remedy process, which is intended to encourage companies to repair past harms before regaining acceptance.
- APRIL says the changes align with evolving global standards and could help improve sustainability practices across Indonesia’s forestry sector, but critics warn the move risks eroding trust in both APRIL and FSC.
JAKARTA — Pulp and paper giant APRIL’s recent decision to lower its deforestation commitments and source wood from two companies associated with extensive recent forest loss has created a new challenge for its relationship with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), with environmental groups urging the world’s leading forestry certifier to terminate the already suspended reassociation process.
In late May, APRIL announced it was reviewing its decade-old Sustainable Forest Management Policy (SFMP) 2.0 and lowering its deforestation cutoff date from 2015 to Dec. 31, 2020.
The move allows Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper producer to source wood from PT Industrial Forest Plantation (IFP) and PT Mayawana Persada (Mayawana), two companies that have experienced some of the country’s largest recent forest losses.
APRIL said the decision was necessary to address fibre shortages after the Indonesian government revoked the operating permits of four of its long-term suppliers earlier this year, affecting around 15% of its wood supply in Riau Province.
According to data from the forest-monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, together, IFP and Mayawana lost nearly 80,000 hectares (197,684 acres) of forest — an area almost half the size of London — between 2015 and 2024, including more than 54,000 hectares (133,436 acres) after 2020. This is more than any other forestry companies in Indonesia.
Environmental groups have criticized the move, arguing that it weakens a longstanding no-deforestation safeguard and sends a message that companies can continue to access markets without remedying past environmental damage.
The controversy has also drawn the attention of the FSC itself.
The FSC told Mongabay it is currently reviewing APRIL’s updated sourcing policies.
“As with any matter that may have implications for an FSC process, FSC must review the available evidence before reaching a decision,” the organization told Mongabay.
“We are concerned, however, that the need for such analysis has emerged.”
A test for FSC’s remedy framework
APRIL, part of the Singapore-headquartered Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group, has been trying to regain FSC certification since signing an agreement with the organization in November 2023.
The process falls under FSC’s Remedy Framework, which allows previously disassociated companies to return after addressing environmental and social harms they have caused.
APRIL withdrew from the FSC in 2013 after environmental groups filed complaints over large-scale deforestation and social conflicts linked to its operations in Indonesia.
The company’s efforts to return to the FSC, however, were suspended in September 2025 following allegations that personnel associated with APRIL affiliate PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) attacked members of an Indigenous community in the province of North Sumatra. The community has long opposed TPL’s presence, saying it never consented to the company’s operations.
The remedy process remains suspended today.
Despite that, APRIL says it remains committed to the process and argues that its recent policy changes do not weaken its environmental commitments.
The company says moving its cutoff date to 2020 aligns it with evolving international standards, including the FSC, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Accountability Framework Initiative.
APRIL also says sourcing from IFP and Mayawana will allow it to engage a broader supplier base and help improve sustainability practices across Indonesia’s plantation forestry sector.
But FSC’s response suggests the situation may be more complicated than APRIL’s narrative of simply aligning with global standards.
While APRIL says it is aligning itself with FSC’s 2020 cutoff date, the FSC is reminding stakeholders that APRIL’s earlier 2015 commitment helped persuade the organization to re-engage with the company in the first place.
“The commitments made by APRIL under its SFMP 2.0 — including its commitment to enforce a policy of no conversion after 2015 — were an important step for FSC to re-open a dialogue with APRIL after its original disassociation in 2013,” the FSC said.
The organization stopped short of saying whether APRIL’s recent decisions would affect its future reassociation efforts.
However, the FSC said any confirmed relationships with suppliers responsible for recent or ongoing conversion activities would be a concern because such activities do not align with its standards.
The FSC also said it is currently assessing APRIL’s sourcing decisions and could undertake further analysis if necessary.
Remedy or amnesty?
Environmental groups say APRIL’s decisions expose a fundamental tension between the FSC’s philosophy and the company’s new sourcing strategy.
Aron White, Southeast Asia lead at U.K.-based NGO Earthsight, said FSC’s Remedy Framework was designed to encourage companies to improve their performance, but only after they remedied the damage they had caused.
“What we’re seeing instead with APRIL accepting these new suppliers is an amnesty — an apparent total forgiveness of the immense, very recent damage the companies have done with no requirement to remedy that harm,” he told Mongabay.
“We’re not talking about historical deforestation. We’re talking thousands and thousands of hectares cleared just a few years ago, with severe conflict with communities ongoing. These are not past offenders, they are current offenders.”
White said suppliers such as IFP and Mayawana should first undertake meaningful restoration and restitution efforts before being welcomed into sustainable supply chains.
“It’s not the case that the damage is done and nothing can now be done about it,” he said.
“Canals in drained and deforested peatland could be dammed, which would help to stem carbon emissions, reduce fire risk and restore the critical carbon sink. Forest and orangutan habitat could be restored.”
Community conflicts could also be addressed through meaningful consultation, compensation and restoration of land rights, he said.
White said buyers such as APRIL could instead create incentives for suppliers to restore forests, rehabilitate peatlands and resolve conflicts with local communities before being accepted into sustainable supply chains.
“But as it stands, APRIL is throwing away that opportunity and the potential leverage for good that comes with it,” he said.
Environmental groups say neither IFP nor Mayawana has yet undertaken significant efforts to restore destroyed forest and peatland or provide restitution to affected communities.
Kim Carstensen, former director-general of the FSC and now a part-time sustainability adviser to APRIL, offered a different perspective.
He acknowledged that sourcing from IFP and Mayawana carries “clear risks,” but argued that companies responsible for past deforestation should be given opportunities to improve.
Carstensen said APRIL’s approach could help drive broader change across Indonesia’s plantation forestry sector if suppliers permanently stop converting forests and commit to conservation measures and independent verification.
“It could be a development similar to what happened in the paper and pulp sector in Brazil where a stop for deforestation — due to the need for FSC certification — became the norm in that sector,” he said.
“Moving APRIL’s new open market suppliers to no deforestation could be a major step towards cleaning up the whole sector in Indonesia.”
White rejected that argument, saying APRIL was weakening existing commitments rather than creating new ones.
“If this is going to drive any sector-wide change, it will not be positive,” he said.
Timer Manurung, executive director of Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara, said the timing of APRIL’s decisions was particularly striking given that the company is still trying to regain FSC certification.
Therefore, he calls APRIL’s decisions “reckless and highly irresponsible”.
“It almost feels like they are mocking the FSC by suddenly bringing in IFP and Mayawana in this way,” Timer told Mongabay.
Trust at stake
The FSC said the remedy process ultimately depends on trust.
“The remedy process is premised on building trust with stakeholders to enable effective implementation,” the organization said.
That trust, environmental groups argue, is now at risk.
White said FSC’s response to APRIL’s decisions remained too cautious.
“They are suggesting that there is further analysis or investigation required to determine whether APRIL has a relationship with companies responsible for recent deforestation,” he said.
“This attitude is difficult to understand, given APRIL has announced these relationships publicly, and it is established fact that both these companies have been responsible for very extensive, very recent deforestation.”
White said the FSC should not rely on the fact that APRIL’s remedy process is already suspended to avoid taking a clearer position.
“If the FSC’s remedy process is to retain integrity, and its potential value in incentivising sustainable decision-making from other industry actors worldwide, FSC should state immediately that APRIL’s sourcing decisions are contrary to its standards and to the spirit and purpose of its remedy process, and terminate the already suspended process,” he said.
“Failure to do so would send a message to other companies that buying from even the least sustainable sources wouldn’t necessarily exclude them from FSC processes — this needs to be a clear red line.”
The FSC pointed out that APRIL is ultimately responsible for implementing the remedy process, and thus it “cannot predict how stakeholders may react or what measures APRIL may propose to build or restore trust.”
Ultimately, how APRIL rebuilds trust with stakeholders — and whether the FSC concludes that trust can be rebuilt at all — may now shape the future of the company’s long-running effort to return to the world’s most influential forestry certification system.
Banner image: Recently cleared land in the concession of PT Mayawana Persada, where canals have been constructed to drain peatland, 2024. Image courtesy of Auriga Nusantara.
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Credits
This story first appeared on Mongabay
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.