German Head Office Langemarckstr. 210 28199 Bremen Germany PH: +49 421 / 598 28 8 Fax.: +49 421 / 598 28 72

Press Office Nernstweg 32 22765 Hamburg Germany PH: +49 40 / 380 892 0 Fax.: +49 40 / 380 892 14

29th April 2004 deutsche Version... Germany is jointly responsible for environmental destruction in Sumatra Representatives of Indonesian non-governmental organisations call upon the German federal government and private sector not to do business at the cost of the people and environment of Indonesia. They are especially critical of the connections between Germany and the pulp and paper corporations APP and APRIL, which have destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest and dispossessed many native peoples of their land. APP and APRIL run two of the world's largest pulp factories in Sumatra. They clearcut rainforest for their production, and convert it into plantations. With a yearly forest loss of 3.8 million hectares, Indonesia is one of the world's leaders in deforestation. Altogether the industry in Indonesia annually uses ten times more wood from natural forests than is permitted by the government. Longgena Ginting, the director of the Indonesia environmental forum Walhi, and Rivani Noor from the Alliance of Victims of the Pulp Industry, CAPPA, on a visit to Berlin, are talking with officials of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and representatives of the paper trade company PAPER UNION. In the 1990s, the German federal government export credit agency Hermes guaranteed the financing for German business deals with APP for over 370 million Euro. Recently the government, against protests from environmental organisations, assumed a manufacture guarantee for an APP paper factory in China. Environmentalists appeal to the federal government to support Indonesian civil society in combating corruption. PAPER UNION has ignored the calls of environmental organisations until now and continues to purchase the paper brand "Paper One" from APRIL. To produce this paper, APRIL converts thousand year old peat forests, the habitat of the Sumatra tiger, into monocultures and in doing so violates Indonesia forestry laws. This week, 50 environmental groups world wide have called upon the PAPER UNION to withdraw paper from destructively exploited forests from their production selection. Three thousand people participated in the online protest organised by 'Save the Rainforest' ('Rettet den Regenwald'). "The paper corporations are destroying the forests and thereby the livelihood of many people. They leave behind an ecological disaster for future generations", says Rivani Noor of CAPPA. The extent of forest destruction committed by APP and APRIL is exposed in a new research report from ROBIN WOOD (www.robinwood.de/sumatrarecherche). An English version of this report will soon be available. The Indonesian representatives are here by invitation of Watch Indonesia!, Urgewald and ROBIN WOOD in Berlin. Contact: Watch Indonesia!, 030-69817938 Barbara Happe, urgewald, 030-44339168 Peter Gerhardt, ROBIN WOOD, 040-38089218, tropenwald@robinwood.de