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Hamburg, 25th August 2004 deutsche Version... Resorts: Current News/Environment/Consumers ROBIN WOOD convinces Metro: Commercial Group intends to renounce paper from the destruction of rainforest Metro, one of the world's largest commercial groups, will terminate the buisiness with ist paper supplier APP. With this, Metro reacts to protests by ROBIN WOOD. The environmental organisation had criticised that the pulp and paper group APP (Asia Pulp and Paper) destroys large areas of rainforest on Sumatra for its paper Production, and that it is responsible for human rights violations of the people living there. ROBIN WOOD regards the decision now made by Metro as an important signal to industry and trade world-wide to refrain from the trade with products resulting from the destruction of primary forest. Metro got under pressure after ROBIN WOOD had made public that the two chains belonging to Metro, Kaufhof and Real, sell Paper from APP. ROBIN WOOD had charged a renowned US-laboratory with a fibre analysis of APP-copying paper of the brand "Sigma Universal" (Real). Result: The paper was manufactured from mixed tropical hardwood. This was followed by protest actions at this years general meeting of shareholders of Metro in Düsseldorf as well as in front of department stores in several German cities - and finally by Metro giving in. The Metro Group had at first examined the demands by ROBIN WOOD, and had then asked APP for a comment, the Group´s environment manager now wrote to ROBIN WOOD. The letter further says: "The METRO Group has taken the dialogue with APP as an occasion to demand a written proof from all their paper suppliers that the raw materials used do not originate from forest areas worth protecting. In the future, this written proof of origin will be a prerequisite for the suppliers to participate in any paper tenders. APP has not provided this proof." APP has announced that alone this year and next year they would clear 180,000 hectares of forest on Sumatra. Investigations on site by ROBIN WOOD prove that APP is not even able to guarantee that the wood originates from legal sources. "Metro´s decision will attract international attention, and it will show investors and industry world-wide that companies will have to be worried about their image, if they do business at the expense of the rainforests", says ROBIN WOOD´s tropical-forest expert Peter Gerhardt. ROBIN WOOD now encourages Metro to continue consequently the path now taken. "We will be pleased to support Metro in setting binding standards for the purchase of paper, and in offering more recycled paper", says Jens Wieting from ROBIN WOOD. In all chains belonging to the Metro Group (Metro C&C, Media Markt, Real, Saturn, Comet, Extra, Kaufhof) APP-paperproducts still might be found. According to the Metro it will last at least half a year, till all APP-products will be sold out. Therefore ROBIN WOOD advises all consumers - who don't want to contribute to the destruction of tropical rainforest - to be careful when buying paperproducts in Metro-shops. Prior to the Metro-Group, already Karstadt and Deutsche Post have reacted to protests by ROBIN WOOD, and have removed paper from their line of goods of such companies which destroy Surmatra´s rainforest. Contact: Peter Gerhardt, Tropical-Forest Campaigner, Ph. +49 40 / 380 892 18, tropenwald@robinwood.de Jens Wieting, Tropical-Forest Campaigner, Ph. +49 40 / 380 892 15, tropenwald@robinwood.de Ute Bertrand, Press Spokesperson, Ph. +49 40 / 380 892 22, presse@robinwood.de