Jakarta. APRIL Group, a leading manufacturer of pulp, paper, and board products, has announced that it has teamed up with the global conservation organization IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature - to help advance conservation science and protect biodiversity.

The five-year collaboration brings together IUCN’s global scientific expertise and APRIL’s operational reach in Indonesia to generate robust conservation science. They also seek to expand the use of conservation tools in APRIL’s conservation and restoration landscapes, while also building capacity that supports national and international biodiversity goals.

The partnership will center on expanding IUCN’s Red List of Ecosystems (RLE), the global framework that documents the status of ecosystems. This is expected to contribute to the Global RLE Peatlands Assessment, aiming to provide stronger evidence to guide the conservation of this critical ecosystem and important global carbon sink. Peatlands are only around 3 to 4 percent of the Earth’s land surface but contain up to a third of total soil carbon, around twice the amount locked up in global forests.

This collaboration will also pilot the IUCN’s RHINO -- short for Rapid High-Integrity Nature-positive Outcomes. This is a new approach that guides organizations to protect species and ecosystems. The partnership will focus on APRIL’s restoration project, the Restorasi Ekosistem Riau (RER). 

This is a massive forest conservation and restoration program located in Sumatra’s Kampar Peninsula, which covers an area of peat swamp forest twice the size of Singapore. IUCN will guide APRIL on further enhancing its programs, while generating practical lessons for the wider forestry and land-use sector on how they can measure, improve, and share progress on biodiversity outcomes.

"The world is running out of time to reverse biodiversity loss, and science must guide every step we take,” IUCN’s director-general Grethel Aguilar said. 

“This collaboration with APRIL allows us to scale up the Red List of Ecosystems and test new approaches like IUCN RHINO in real-world scenarios. By combining IUCN’s science with APRIL’s operational reach in Indonesia, we can turn data into action and create a sustainable model for how business and conservation can work together to meet global biodiversity targets," Aguilar said.

The collaboration further provides a unique opportunity for IUCN to strengthen its work with its Indonesian members and conservation actors, catalyzing on-the-ground action at scale. IUCN will deepen engagement with a range of stakeholders in Indonesia on advancing national efforts to restore biodiversity.

Anderson Tanoto, the Managing Director at RGE and Executive Committee member at APRIL, said that businesses today have to move beyond pledges. APRIL is a member of the RGE group of companies.

“For us, conservation is about taking practical action. Businesses today are expected to move beyond pledges and deliver results that are credible, practical, and measurable on the ground. Our collaboration with IUCN strengthens APRIL’s science-based approach to landscape management and accelerates delivery of our APRIL2030 commitments. By combining global science with local action, this partnership enhances our conservation and restoration programmes and engages a wider network of experts and stakeholders to achieve meaningful biodiversity outcomes”.

The IUCN-APRIL collaboration supports the delivery of the Global Biodiversity Framework, demonstrating how private sector engagement can align with international conservation priorities. It also represents APRIL’s commitment to take a concrete step toward fostering resilience in ecosystems and communities while supporting global biodiversity targets.

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