Paper Giant Destroys Natural Forests, Hides Behind Philanthropy—Part 1 of 2

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On March 28, Greenpeace China announced its discovery that the paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has planted a large area of eucalyptus trees for pulp and paper making in Yingge Mountain Provincial Conservation Area, in southern China’s Hainan Province. In doing so, the subsidiary of the Indonesia-based Sinar Mas Group has breached China’s Conservation Area Management Regulation and Hainan environmental protection rules for a second time, after promising the State Forestry Administration in May 2005 that it would “follow the law.”

“Hainan has become the next target of APP after Yunnan,” a staff person at the Greenpeace press office observed. “The company apparently wants to exploit China’s natural forest resources.” Both southwestern China’s Yunnan Province and the island province of Hainan are biologically diverse areas with rich forest resources.

APP only started planting pulpwood trees in Yunnan around 2002, but has been engaged in the activity in Hainan since 1994. Eucalyptus, an ideal species for pulpwood production, can now be seen everywhere around Hainan, with conservation areas like Bawang Mountain and Jiefeng Mountain surrounded by “battalions” of the trees. Entire mountainsides are covered by the trees, which resemble soldiers in uniform on parade or a canvas of suffocating cloth.

In 1997, Hainan Jin Hua Forestry Company, an APP subsidiary, planted a demonstration project of some 100,000 mu (6666 hectares) of pulpwood trees, including Grand Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus urophylla, and Acacia mangium, in each county of the province. The project has been a success, since one mu of good-quality pulpwood trees can produce four cubic meters of timber each year, or 24 cubic meters over the six-year logging period. By the end of 2004, the project had planted a total of 970,000 mu (64,600 hectares) of pulpwood trees, though it still lagged behind the target of 3.5 million mu (233,000 hectares). The slowdown in planting has been attributed mainly to the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, which affected APP’s investments, as well as continued dry weather that prevented planting.

Ironically, the local government considers planting pulpwood trees to be a form of “ecological development.” On February 6, 1999, the government of Hainan, with approval from China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), passed the Decision on the Construction of an Ecological Province. That July, the government issued the Outline of a Plan for the Construction of the Ecological Province of Hainan, which states that after 1999, the province should “undertake efforts to expand plantations, including the planting of 3,500,000 mu (233,000 hectares) of pulpwood trees,” and “produce 3,000,000 cubic meters of timber each year as pulp material for Jin Hai Pulp & Paper Company” as a way to build up ecological industry.

Bin Liu, director of the forest program at Greenpeace China, titled his recent report Lament for Yingge Mountain. A field investigation by the group two weeks ago confirmed that APP has planted at least 8,943 mu (596 hectares) of eucalyptus in Yingge Mountain Conservation Area. With the help of local guides, Greenpeace discovered thousands of mu of eucalyptus growing inside the core conservation area.

The Yingge Mountain Conservation Area was established in July 2004, while the eucalyptus trees growing within its boundaries were cultivated in 2005 and 2006. To plant the trees, Jin Hua Forestry Company has built a 7-meter wide, 20-kilometer long road around the conservation area, which resembles a snake strangling the peak. Greenpeace has accused APP of not only planting large areas of eucalyptus in the core conservation and water-source areas, but also “building a road that destroys the local ecology.”

Admittedly, APP is good at maintaining smooth relations with the media, its clients, and some ecological experts, and it has often invited them to visit the company’s production bases. Following these interactions, many outsiders have praised APP as a model of an environmentally friendly paper company. A national academy under China’s papermaking industry once submitted a report to the 2005 annual conference of the China Association for Science and Technology strongly requesting that the government expand eucalyptus plantations around the country. All of APP’s projects are approved by top provincial officials and have strong legislative backing, despite opposition from local governments or existing regulations covering the conservation areas.

Jun Wang, the president of APP China, announced on March 28 that APP has cultivated nearly 1.1 million mu (73,000 hectares) of artificial plantations in Hainan, which he said has helped to improve the province’s forest coverage by 2.36 percent. Meanwhile, it took the company only 18 months to build the world’s largest, most automated, and “greenest” pulp production line, which has so far produced some 1.9 million tons of pulp.

A report last December, prepared by the Hainan government for a meeting on “building an ecological province,” notes that the government has supported several large-scale projects that have both protected the local environment and reduced pollution. It cites the example of APP’s local pulp and paper factory in Yangpu, the effluent from which tested at only 100 milligrams per liter of chemical oxygen demand (COD), far below the national standard of 420 milligrams per liter.

But at the same time, the expansion of eucalyptus plantations is threatening local wildlife habitat. Today, only an estimated 15 Hainan Gibbon, a monkey species unique to the province, survive in the wild .

The fertile and sun-drenched land of Yunnan, which provides a perfect growing environment for pulpwood trees, has attracted APP to develop a second plantation base in this province, though it is not on the State Forestry Administration’s list to develop an integrated tree, pulp, and paper project. APP’s logging and planting activities in Yunnan have faced constant media exposure as international and domestic environmental groupe maintain a keen focus on the biodiversity hotspot.

Yet APP has planted almost 1 million mu (66,000 hectares) of eucalyptus in Yunnan. How many more natural forests in the province will need to be cut to meet APP’s goal of 22 million mu (1,466,000 hectares)? The biodiversity of Yunnan will become history when the natural forests disappear. The provincial government has maintained a loose attitude to APP’s project, the province’s largest foreign investment project ever, despite unfulfilled promises made by the company.

Not satisfied with its activities only in Yunnan and Hainan, the ambitious company, which already boasts the largest market share in China, has developed a nationwide strategy of “poplar in the North, eucalyptus in the South.” APP has been planting eucalyptus in southern China’s Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces for many years, and also has been expanding poplar plantations in north Hebei, Henan, and Shandong provinces. The paper giant may cover the whole country with plantations in the near future.

Not just APP, but paper giants from around the world hope to rent land and plant pulpwood trees in China, to help meet the country’s mounting demand for paper. “Otherwise, Chinese will be starved for paper just as for food,” observed APP president Wang. Fast-growing eucalyptus can be cut every six years, as can fast-growing poplar, which requires five or six years to produce pulp. Moreover, in recent years, some local paper manufacturers in China have switched away from traditional grass pulp, which results in harder-to-control pollution, to wood pulp.

On March 29, APP opened a new 1.6-million-ton integrated tree, pulp, and paper project in Hainan. But this time, the province’s propaganda department did not invite Hainan-based central media to join the announcement. APP’s situation in Hainan is changing slightly as positions in the local government turn over and as environmental requirements are increasingly enforced.

Yongfeng Feng is an acclaimed editor and journalist at China Guangming Daily who reports and writes on science and technology issues. Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.