Child labour was exposed in APRIL’s supply chain by Eyes on the Forest in April 2014. While investigating clear-cutting in Sumatra’s Kampar Peninsula by PT Triomas Forestry Development Indonesia, Eyes on the Forest took photographs of children at work for the APRIL supplier. Such arrangements violate national legislation and international standards.

A multinational public health crisis was triggered partially by APRIL in 2015, following a smoke and haze incident to which the company’s land-clearing activities contributed. APRIL was found to be a main perpetrator of fires that burned a total of 2.6 million hectares in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. The fires consumed plantations, forests and peatlands and the resulting smoke and haze consumed Southeast Asia. National emergencies were declared in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and beyond. The crisis killed 19 people and it was estimated that another 500,000 suffered from respiratory tract infections. In 2015, an investigation into the public health impacts of Indonesia’s 2015 forest fires estimated that 91,600 people in Indonesia died prematurely from fine particle exposure, as well as 6,500 in Malaysia and 2,200 in Singapore.

Land-grabbing from Indigenous people and other forest communities that rely on cultivating rubber, sago and other crops has been an APRIL tactic for years. In 2011, for example, residents of Riau’s Kampar Peninsula and coastal islands resorted to sewing their mouths shut to raise awareness of land grabs by APRIL. Released in June 2015, APRIL Group’s Sustainable Forest Management Policy 2.0 committed the company and its affiliates to resolving its existing social conflicts and to respecting Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) requirements. By September 2016, Eyes on the Forest had reported that APRIL was failing to involve affected communities and other key stakeholders in the identification, analysis and resolution of a Sumatran land conflict. APRIL’s 2017 Sustainability Report identified 880 unresolved land conflicts that its supplier PT RAPP was embroiled in, concerning at least 21,000 hectares of land.

Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) – another company associated with APRIL via Sukanto Tanoto’s Royal Golden Eagle Group – was at the centre of a land conflict with the Indigenous Batak people in North Sumatra. TPL deprived the Batak people of clean watersheds, shelter, medicine, food and livelihoods by converting their ancestral lands into plantations. In late 2016, TPL was ordered to return 13,000 hectares of ancestral lands to Indigenous communities by the Indonesian government. In early 2024, an indigenous leader was jailed for a conflict regarding ancestral land occupied by APRIL’s sister company Toba Pulp Lestari.

Massive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through peatland destruction is just one consequence of APRIL’s practices. A 2016 Wetlands International report argued against APRIL’s claims that peatland can be drained in a sustainable manner that doesn’t result in long-term GHG drainage. According to a 2012 Biogeosciences field study of APRIL’s concessions in Indonesia, the release of CO2 from an acacia plantation on peatlands has been identified as around 80 tonnes per year, per hectare; in 2017, an Environmental Paper Network study surmised that APRIL's supplier plantations on peat therefore emitted more than 19 million tonnes of CO2 annually, which was more than Slovenia’s total annual GHG emissions.

APRIL has repeatedly violated emerging peat legislation. Peat fires deliberately set by the company led to government sanctions in 2016 and APRIL has repeatedly tried to block official inspections on its concessions areas. Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry instructed APRIL to block its peatland canals in 2015 but in the following year, three kilometres of deep-peat APRIL canals were found on Padang Island, east of Sumatra. This discovery prompted Greenpeace and WWF to break off their engagement with APRIL. In October 2017, the Indonesian government revoked a forestry permit for APRIL subsidiary PT RAPP. APRIL responded by threatening to fire its workforce, which mobilised them against the government; APRIL also tried (and failed) to sue the Indonesian government. Since then, APRIL continued to operate on drained peat, despite the huge CO2 emissions  and the recurring peat fires.

Rainforest destruction has been present in APRIL’s supply chain since it commenced forestry activities in 1993. Following years of pressure, APRIL announced its Sustainable Forest Management Policy version 2.0 (SFMP 2.0) in June 2015. The implementation of this zero-deforestation policy has been unsatisfactory however, with violations discovered soon after its publication. For example, APRIL’s pulp mill operating company PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP) purchased over 2.3 million cubic metres of pulpwood from PT Adindo Hutani Lestari between 2015 and 2019. Adindo cut down an estimated 7,291 hectares of natural forest from 2015-2020, of which over 50% (3,790 hectares) was on peatlands. In November 2018, PT Tanjung Redeb Hutani (TRH) was found to have cleared the equivalent of 190,000 football fields in East Kalimantan in order to supply APRIL with pulpwood.

A joint 2020 report by the Environmental Paper Network and Indonesian NGOs into APRIL’s ongoing destruction of natural areas presented new deforestation cases reported by the Indonesian NGO network, Jikalahari. The network believes that APRIL is using a tactic of setting up a “cooperative” in order to expand beyond its own concessions into community land. Called Koto Intuok Cooperative, the cooperative was granted a permit to operate on 1,565 hectares of land near the Sumatran village of Pulau Padang in 2018. The peat swamp forests located here would be illegally cleared, which would negatively impact the Bukit Rimbang Bukit Baling Wildlife Sanctuary’s ecosystem and violate APRIL’s own policy. Jikalahari also found that the APRIL subsidiary Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (PT RAPP) is clearing community-owned swamp-forest on thick peatland for acacia plantations. Analysis reveals these new plantations to be on protected peatlands that were identified as restoration priorities by the government following the 2015-2017 burning seasons.

Expanding processing capacity beyond the means of its plantation resources drives APRIL’s deforestation. In 2015, the company committed to becoming self-sufficient for its wood fibre supply before any further expansions of its pulp production. As of 2021 and according to APRIL’s own reporting, it was not yet self-sufficient, remaining dependent on open-market and imports for 20% of its wood fibre. Despite this, APRIL plans to expand the pulp capacity of its Kerinci mill in Indonesia’s Riau Province by 55% and grow its annual wood demand to 22.1 million cubic metres. APRIL is also developing the Kutai Chip Mill for the Chinese market and boosting production capacity at its Brazilian pulp producer Lwarcel Celulose with a new pulp mill in Mato Grosso do Sul. Both of these developments risk deforestation.

The endangerment of Indonesia’s biodiversity has been an inevitable consequence of APRIL’s decision to replace rainforests with plantations. Such activity destroys habitats: in 2005, APRIL was found to be sourcing materials from the rainforests of Bukit Tigapuluh and Kerumutan, which Sumatran tigers rely upon. In 2013, FSC “dissociated” itself from APRIL for “being involved in large-scale deforestation activities in Indonesia and bringing negative social and environmental impacts to areas with high conservation values.”

The decimation of natural forests and peatland was infamously blamed on APRIL – among others – in autumn 2015. “Slash and burn fires” grew out of control amid El Niño-triggered drought conditions. Indonesia lost 2.6 million hectares of forests, peatlands and plantations across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua.

Underhand financial arrangements allow APRIL to continue receiving financing from banks such as Credit Suisse and ABN AMRO despite the company’s tarnished reputation. According to a 2017 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists report based on the Paradise Papers, APRIL has shuffled billions of dollars through a web of offshore companies, from the Cook Islands to the British Virgin Islands.