The Environmental Paper Network and BankTrack have sent letters to 26 banks to express their concerns regarding the pulp and paper companies Asia Pacific Resources Limited (APRIL), Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) and their sister companies under the conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle Group (RGE), due to their involvement in large scale deforestation and social conflicts. Research has demonstrated that these companies are involved in illegalities under Indonesian law, under Chinese banking regulations and under international norms. In fact, APRIL does not even respect its own Sustainable Forest Management Policy, which it adopted on January 28th, 2014.

Read the full letter here.

In the letter, the organizations ask assurance from the banks that they have no significant involvement with APRIL or any of its sister companies, and that they will not do so until the RGE group ends its illegal and unsustainable environmental and social practices and achieves a performance consistent with the EPN Performance Milestones.

In the past six years, banks have invested at least USD 1.5 billion dollar in APRIL alone. Below is a list of banks that have received a letter because they are among the biggest financiers of the pulp and paper sector or because they are known for having invested in APRIL:

ABN Amro - The Netherlands
Agricultural Bank of China - China
Barclays - United Kingdom
Bank of America - United States of America
Bank of China - China
China CITIC Bank - China
China Construction Bank - China
China Development Bank - China
China Merchants Bank - China
Credit Suisse - Switzerland
Goldman Sachs - United States of America
HSBC - United Kingdom
Industrial and Commercial Bank China - China
JP Morgan Chase - United States of America
Mizuho - Japan
Morgan Stanley - United States of America
MUFG - Japan
Ping An Bank - China
RBS - United Kingdom
Santander - Spain
Sumitomo - Japan
Wells Fargo - United States of America
Wing Lung Bank - Hong Kong