APP strikes back at Greenpeace report

APP commissioned a report from audit group Melbourne-based ITS Global to analyse claims made in Greenpeace's July 2010 report, How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet.

ITS Global chief executive Alan Oxley said analysis of Greenpeace's report revealed "that Greenpeace provided quotes that don't exist, maps that show concessions that don't exist, and used source material with high margins of error that was cited as absolute fact".

"A careful examination of the evidence shows that the Greenpeace report is highly misleading and simply not defensible," he said.

"The claim about a secret massive company expansion in Indonesia is based on fiction.  And the information supporting the allegation that the company is engaging in illegal forestry on peatland is either groundless or seriously in error."

But Greenpeace Australia has already hit back at Oxley's report.

"Alan Oxley describes his new audit as 'independent'. This is a joke. He has a history of being employed by and providing communications cover on behalf some of the biggest forest destroyers on the planet. As such, it's no surprise that he is once again defending one of the most destructive companies in Indonesia," a Greenpeace spokesperson told ProPrint this morning.

The NGO also defended the accuracy of the data cited in its report, saying that it uses the "best available concession data compiled from a variety of sources", including the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and regional land registry offices, as well as carrying out covert field investigations.

APP has battled persistent allegations from environmental NGOs that it has engaged in practices such as illegal logging and unsustainable deforestation.

Aida Greenbury, sustainability managing director for APP, told ProPrint in an exclusive webcast last year that western NGOs unfairly target the company.

"Our sustainable practices are among the most advanced in the pulp and paper industry anywhere in the world. When a group like Greenpeace fabricates information and misuses data to attack our business, they are really advancing their own political agenda at the expense of the livelihoods of our employees, their families and paper unions around the world," she said.

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