Indonesia's forests are disappearing and deteriorating at an alarming rate due to factors such as forest fires, illegal logging and slash and burn farming.
Sumitomo Forestry has been planting trees on a large scale in Indonesia. In 2009, we started work on a large-scale commercial forest plantation project covering 280,000 hectares in West Kalimantan, together with PT. Wana Subur Lestari (WSL). This project contributes not only to stable timber supply, but also the regional environment and livelihoods of those in the community.
PT. Kutai Timber Indonesia (KTI) and PT. Rimba Partikel Indonesia (RPI) are two companies providing suburban farms and other households with seedlings, and then buying the trees grown in what is called "social forestry." This helps to both stabilize raw material procurement and invigorate the local economy.
Meanwhile, we are also active in environmental plantation projects. We have regenerated 500 hectares of tropical forest in East Kalimantan since 1991 and worked on an ODA-backed non-profit reforestation project in the fire-damaged forests of Sumatra since 2000. We also started a project in 2009 toward initiating CDM plantation operations in East Java called Project Earth.
Furthermore, Open Bay Timber Ltd. (OBT) has been developing plantation forest operations in Papua New Guinea since 1984. They have planted 20,000 hectares of forest, greatly contributing to the local economy.
