Kampar peninsula is a contiguous peat soil area of around 700,000 hectares. Located within Pelalawan District and Siak District, Riau Province, the Kampar peninsula area is also considered one of the last havens for critically endangered Sumatran tigers, whose wild population is estimated to be down to just 400-500. The landscape was designated a “regional priority” tiger conservation landscape by the world’s leading tiger scientists in 2006. A preliminary estimate by WWF-Indonesia shows that a well-managed Kampar peninsula could be home to as many as 60 tigers.

Until 2002, it was still fully covered by natural forest, but only around 400,000 of that remained in 2007. Most of the lost forest was cleared to supply natural forest wood to mills run by APP and its competitor, Asia Pacific Resources International Holding (APRIL), and then planted in acacia plantations to supply the pulp mills. A small part has been converted into oil palm plantations or wastelands. Kampar Peninsula is one of some areas wherever APP depends on to gain pulp sources for its paper products. Until 2004, companies under APP have been cleared out 13,000 hectares of natural forests in north west area and sout east area of Kampar Peninsula. Environmental activitists worry that bad hydrological management in these concessions will lead to destruction on Kampar peat land ecosystem and forest fires around the concessions.

Kampar peninsula is considered a key conservation site by many NGOs and the Government of Indonesia:

• Local NGO network Jikalahari has formally proposed that the Ministry of Forestry protect the natural forest of Kampar. Jikalahari also jointly signed an MoU with Siak and Pelalawan District Administrations at a side event of Bali COP last year .
• WWF included these forests in the Sundaland Rivers and Swamps ecosystem of its Global 200 priority ecoregions and proposed to the Ministry of Forestry to protect Kampar.
• Kampar peninsula is a “Regional Priority Tiger Conservation Landscape” for the critically endangered Sumatran tiger whose wild population is estimated to be down to just 400 .
• A rapid tiger survey conducted in Kampar concluded that the rate of photo-capture by camera traps was the highest achieved by any published study on Sumatran tigers in Indonesia. A preliminary estimate by WWF-Indonesia shows that a well--managed Kampar peninsula could contain as many as 60 tigers.
• Wetlands International identified Kampar as one of the highest priority areas for inclusion in the protected area network.
• BirdLife International has designated it as an “Important Bird Area .”

Relevant report by WWF-Indonesia and peat scientists