Features Environment & Sustainability Paper Pulp
Asia Pulp & Paper partners on training 1,000 women in forest communities

October 10, 2018 – Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has partnered with Martha Tilaar Group (MTG), a cosmetics and hermal medicine manufacturer, and the Indonesian Network of the United Nations Global Compact (UN Global Compact) to train 1,000 women from forest communities by 2020 to help them become entrepreneurs and to preserve herbal plants. 

The women will be trained on how to identify and process valuable local herbs, enabling community-level entrepreneurship that will provide sustainable alternative livelihoods to these women and their families. 

APP’s existing Forest Conservation Policy includes an Integrated Forestry and Farming System (IFFS) programme that helps forest communities switch from traditional natural forest conversions to sustainable agricultural businesses. To date, the IFFS has been implemented in nearly 200 villages, benefitting more than 14,000 households.

MTG has built programs to address the issue of trafficking in Indonesia. To date, MTG has trained more than 7,500 women in various areas, such as professional therapy, healthy herbal drinks and financial management.

APP’s collaboration with MTG will see the latter work and train women who are living in IFFS communities. The training will include identification, preservation and use of native herbs in a sustainable manner.

Goh Lin Piao, managing director of APP, says, “APP is very proud to partner with MTG to empower women within the forest communities. MTG has a proven track record of successfully training and helping women in Indonesia to be self-sufficient and this perfectly complements APP’s mission to conserve natural forests and alleviate poverty, which is one of the drivers of unsustainable land use.”

“This is a great opportunity for MTG to expand its empowerment program and to reach communities that we previously had no access to. This is a natural marriage as our program also dovetails with APP’s desire for their forest communities to find alternative livelihoods to reduce the pressure of needing to cultivate forest land for agriculture,” says Martha Tilaar, founder of MTG and a UN Global Compact 2018 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Pioneer.