Jakarta Globe 3 Aug 11;
A labor union said the Australian government had a responsibility to probe allegations of illegal logging in Sumatra’s rainforests, the Australian Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday aired a program showing evidence that multinational Asia Pacific Resources International, or April, was illegally clearing Sumatran forests.
Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union said that based on that program, April, an importer of paper goods into that country, should be subject to a government investigation.
“April have a lot of questions to answer — the federal government should start asking them immediately,” the union’s Michael O’Connor said in a statement.
“The disturbing thing is that the sustainability and labor standards we insist on at home do not appear to be being applied in Indonesia.
“These allegations underline the need to include all forest products, including paper products, in any measures to tackle illegal logging.”
O’Connor added that Australia had given Indonesia 200 million Australian dollars to stop illegal logging there.
“But in fact what we saw on [the ABC’s] ‘Foreign Correspondent’ is a broad-scale destruction of some of the most important wildlife habitat on the face of the planet.”
