We continuously and actively protect conservation and restoration areas within our concessions and are expanding our work with conservation partners and communities beyond our concession boundaries.
In 2020, we adopted a bold commitment to link our fibre supply to our conservation and restoration efforts. It’s brought to life through a unique internal tariff: for every tonne of plantation wood delivered to our mill, we assign a dollar to conservation work. The large conservation fund we’ve generated illustrates the success of our Production-Protection approach, which supports both economic and environmental interests. Commercial plantations that are sustainably managed become more productive, delivering more money for conservation through our internal tariff.
This initiative does more than offer funding certainty for our own conservation initiatives. It enables us to support conservation partnerships beyond our operational boundaries, serving as a working example of how the private sector can finance and implement conservation projects within and beyond its value chain.
By 2030, we aim to have invested up to USD 100 million through our internal tariff and are on track for doing so, already reaching many milestones:
Our Restorasi Ekosistem Riau (RER) project in Riau Province protects and restores degraded peat swamp forest in a concession spanning 150,000 hectares. Under the project, local communities partner with public and private stakeholders in a Production-Protection landscape approach, with these efforts contributing to many APRIL2030 targets. For example, RER unlocks positive gains for biodiversity by safeguarding the habitat of 896 species of plants and animals—of these, 80 are on the IUCN Red List including the Critically Endangered Sumatran tiger and Sunda pangolin. RER’s work also contributes to our target for zero net loss of conservation and restoration areas. This entails preventing new human-caused degradation, assessing biodiversity, actively restoring and rehabilitating degraded areas through canal blocking and tree planting, and implementing programmes to manage sustainable human activities.
Technology and partnerships are the cornerstones of our monitoring efforts. We observe wildlife biodiversity in our concessions using remote camera traps. These are fixed cameras that are triggered when they detect movement. They do not restrain or impact on the wellbeing of the animals in any way. Recently, we deployed a new Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) to collect, compile and analyse field data that helps us prevent illegal wildlife trade. This task is carried out in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). We rely on satellite imagery and drones for aerial views of concessions run by our teams or our suppliers, so we can take immediate action on any deforestation activity. All remediation efforts are documented and independently assured each year so we can remain transparent about how we manage and protect our land bank.
Fires can derail our biodiversity and conservation efforts, not to mention endanger the lives of staff and local communities. To prevent them, we have a strict No-Burn policy in place for our own and our suppliers’ land management. We also run an educational Fire Free Village Programme (FFVP) for local community members to raise awareness about sustainable forestry management practices. Again, technology plays a pivotal role. We’ve made substantial investments in fire detection and suppression technology, including satellite imaging and CCTV towers at our forest plantations. No fires were reported in or around our concessions in 2023 because of these efforts.
