Greenpeace has blocked one of the world’s largest pulp mills, owned by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), in the heart of Indonesia’s rainforests, an attempt on the eve of the critical UN Copenhagen Climate Summit. Greenpeace activists ‘occupied one of the cranes for 27 hours in extreme conditions. All activists have now been detained by the police for questioning.’ The environmental watch dog has been battling deforestation, one of the root causes of climate change.

APP, along with its parent company Sinar Mas, is a known forest destroyer. ‘This plant is fed by wood from one of the world’s largest peatland forests, on the Kampar Peninsula in Sumatra, which stores up to 2 gigatonnes of carbon.’ Among APP’s giant clients are China, the United States, Europe, and Australia. It supplies paper products to such customers as Vogue, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and designer Marc Jacobs.

Next to China and the US, Indonesia is the world’s third largest climate polluter. The main reason is massive, continuous, and consistent destruction of its forests and their peat soils.

According to Greenpeace, ‘globally, a million hectares of forests are destroyed every month. That’s an area the size of a football pitch every two seconds — emitting so much CO2 that deforestation is one of the main causes of climate change, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.’

Via Greenpeace