Greenpeace said evidence in the form of video, photos and interviews showed massive forestland had been cleared in Yunnan province to make space for planting eucalyptus, a tree used in paper production.

"APP refused to admit its illegal logging activities in the face of an array of evidence," Liu Bing, a campaigner from Greenpeace China, said in a statement.

"Hence, we have the responsibility to provide further evidence to show that APP is deceiving the public and fooling the media."

Greenpeace last month criticized APP for allegedly replacing natural growth in Yunnan with eucalyptus plantation and said APP had denied this accusation.

In response, Greenpeace Thursday cited evidence including what it characterized as a memorandum between APP and a local government in the province.

According to the memo, more than one third of a 200,000-hectare (500,000-acre) area earmarked for eucalyptus plantation consisted of forest land and bush land, Greenpeace said.

APP declined comment when contacted by AFP.

"Our company's leader is in Hong Kong," said the company's Shanghai-based spokesman, surnamed Liu. "We don't have a reaction until he comes back."

APP has long been cited as a main mover behind the widescale destruction of Indonesian rain forests.

It recently agreed to a moratorium on tree cutting in some Indonesian forests until independent conservation assessments on sustainable cutting could be made.

Yunnan rainforests are some of the most diverse in the world with a wide variety of animal and plant life, environmentalists say.

China imposed a stringent ban on logging in 1999 after rampant tree cutting in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River was blamed for soil erosion and severe flodding along the lower reaches.

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