The German discounter KiK will stop purchasing writing paper from the Indonesian paper concern Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) immediately. The Tengelmann-owned company assured this renunciation following talks with the Consumer Protection Agency of the German state of North Rhine Westphalia and the environmental organization Robin Wood Robin Wood. APP is among the largest destroyers of the Indonesian rainforest.

Through fibre analysis ROBIN WOOD was able to determine, beyond doubt, that the no-name writing pads sold by KiK originated in Asian tropical forests. Fibres from trees which are found only in rainforests and not on plantations (known as mixed tropical hardwood) were found in laboratory samples. The writing pads were produced by the APP daughter company PT. Pabrik Kertas Tjiwi Kimia.

APP is responsible for the destruction of over a million Hectares of rainforest in Indonesia-- and APP plans to continue this work of destruction: according to the alliance Eyes on the Forest in Sumatra, APP is planning, along with the company APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited), to destroy another 800,000 hectares of Indonesian rainforest for its oversized pulp mills.

"Companies which do business with APP are responsible of one of the largest ecological crimes of the modern era - warns Peter Gerhardt, of Robin Wood - Together with Indonesian and international environmental and human rights organizations we will continue to intervene rigorously against APP products."

In years of campaigning for th protection of Indonesian rainforests, Robin Wood successfully convinced companies such as Karstadt, Metro, and Deutsche Post, to renounce using paper from APP.