Since the beginning of its forestry activities in 1993, APRIL has a long history of social impacts and human rights abuses. Indigenous people and other local communities have been massively impacted by APRIL’s forest conversion. Communities that rely on cultivating rubber, sago, and other crops within the forest landscape have been at issue with APRIL since 2009, including on Riau’s Kampar Peninsula and coastal islands, causing some residents to resort to drastic protest measures, including sewing their mouths shut.

Despite a new policy that commits APRIL and its suppliers to respect Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) and to resolve all its social conflcits, there has been little change for communities embroiled in land disputes with the company. Hundreds of land conflicts remain. APRIL has failed to involve affected communities and other key stakeholders in the identification, analysis and resolution of these conflicts. According to APRIL, just one supplier (PT RAPP) and its partners have 880 unresolved conflicts, involving at least (in the few known cases) 21,000 hectares of land.

Deforestation APRIL started its forestry activities in 1993 and commercial pulp production in 1998. Since then, its paper production has grown at the cost of Indonesian rainforests. The conversion of natural rainforests into tree plantations inevitably reduces the habitat of species, driving them to extinction. As an example, in 2005 APRIL started to clear the precious rainforests of in Bukit Tigapuluh and Kerumutan landscapes, one of the last habitats of the Sumatran Tiger.

In 2013, FSC had  “dissociated” itself from APRIL, for that company “being involved in large-scale deforestation activities in Indonesia and bringing negative social and environmental impacts to areas with high conservation values.”

In June 2015, after many years of campaigning to stop deforestation by APRIL and after many brands started to avoid their products, APRIL announced a Sustainable Forest Management Policy version 2.0 (SFMP 2.0). However APRIL’s implementation of its own commitments has been unsatisfactory:

Violation of the zero deforestation commitment has been discovered soon after the new policy has been issued. APRIL has been found by NGOs in sourcing by plantation companies involved in deforestation. APRIL did not even admit its wrongdoing. In November 2018 APRIL supplier PT Tanjung Redeb Hutani (TRH), was found still clearing the equivalent of 190,000 football fields to expand its pulpwood plantations in East Kalimantan.

In November 2018, APRIL supplier PT Tanjung Redeb Hutani (TRH), was found still clearing the equivalent of 190,000 football fields to expand its pulpwood plantations in East Kalimantan.

Forest Fires In autumn 2015 APRIL was identified as one of the top companies responsible for the fires occurring in Indonesia, burning 2.6 million hectares of plantations, forests and peatlands throughout Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. An estimated 1.75 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent was released in just a few months, more than Germany's or Japan’s total annual emissions. Daily emissions during the peak weeks of the fires exceeded the daily fossil fuel emissions of the entire USA economy. The fires created a smoke and haze crisis affecting all of South East Asia, triggering national emergencies across Indonesia and into Singapore, Malaysia and other countries, resulting in diplomatic tensions between Indonesia and its neighbouring countries. The human cost was terrible: 19 people died and an estimated 500,000 cases of respiratory tract infections were reported at the time of the fires.

Greenhouse gas emissions Despite APRIL claiming to manage its plantations on peat according to “best management practices”, these practices have been shown to insufficiently curb drainage effects in the long term. According to a scientific field study based on APRIL’s concessions in Indonesia, the release of CO2 from an acacia plantation on peat has been identified as around 80 tonnes per year per hectare. APRIL's supplier plantation on peat stretches on more than 265,000 hectares. As a result, APRIL’s plantations emit 19.4 million tonnes GHG, nearly as much as the whole Slovenian country emission, and as much as 24 low emitting countries combined. In 2017, the company has been also repeatedly sanctioned for violations of the new peat legislation and tried to keep ofiificial inspection put of its concessions. When in October 2017 the government declared the work-plan of APRIL's major and biggest subsidiary and plantation company (PT RAPP) invalid, APRIL responded by bullying the government, threatening mass firing to mobilize workers against the government, and suing the government itself with a court case that APRIL eventually lost. This way APRIL showed how reluctant actually it is to implement protection and conservation of their peatland areas.

In April 2014, Eyes on the Forest documented apparent child labor at the timber plantation of PT Triomas (an APRIL supplier), in violation of national legislation and international standards.