FSC is declaring its intention to more than double its share of global forest-based trade in the next five years to 20 per cent. The strategic plan was developed through consensus by the FSC International Board of Directors, and included extensive consultation with FSC staff, members, and stakeholders. The new FSC Global Strategic Plan 2015-2020 has an emphasis on increasing FSC certification in tropical countries, and providing a voice to those most affected by mismanaged forests – Indigenous Peoples, workers, communities, women, and smallholders - while meeting the needs of current certificate holders. The three strategies that make up the strategic plan are 1) Strengthen the FSC framework and governance, 2) Increase market value of FSC, and 3) Transform the way FSC works.

Austrian timber company Schweighofer is linked to large-scale illegal logging which accounts for half of Romania's timber production. An EIA investigation finds that almost all the illegal timber ends up in the company's mills. Romania still has an estimated 218,000 hectares of old growth forests. A recent Romanian government study estimated that 80 million cubic meters of timber have been cut illegally in the past 20 years, representing a loss to the Romanian economy of over €5 billion. Following the report’s publication, WWF filed a complaint at the Federal Forest Office in Vienna for violations of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) and calls for a full investigation of the allegations against Schweighofer.

After three years of campaigning, a coalition of activists, celebrities and civil society representatives crowded into the Brazilian Congress last week to submit a bill calling for an end to deforestation. The bill is part of a Zero Deforestation campaign led by Greenpeace.

The largest hardwood flooring retailer in the United States, Lumber Liquidators, agreed to plead guilty to several violations of the Lacey Act. The company will have to pay a combined $13.2 million for importing illegally harvested timber from areas including forests in far eastern Russia and other compliance issues. The raids that led to the charges followed investigations and reports by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and WWF. Lumber Liquidators faces separate allegations that it imported laminated wood products with illegal levels of formaldehyde.

The Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) published a report showing the deforestation between 2010 and 2013 declined sharply across the Amazon basin. This is the first time the change in primary forest in the Amazon outside of Brazil is documented. Unlike Brazil, which owns advanced monitoring system, forest data from non-Brazilian countries are much less reported before. The report also includes a detailed deforestation map.

Singapore’s National Environment Agency served Asia Pulp & Paper and four other companies with legal notice under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, because fires burning in the companies’ concessions in Indonesia. The air pollutant index in Singapore hit “hazardous” levels last week, and schools shut down. The haze even is harming relations between the two countries, with Singapore and also Malaysia.

As more than two-thirds of deforestation globally have been caused by commercial agriculture, both governments and private sectors have make many promises to tackle the problem. However, neither is likely to achieve goals by working on their own. Forest experts at Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) propose private sectors to work with REDD+ and other government initiatives, laws, and regulations as a new approach to implement forest commitments.

A study published in August in the journal Environmental Research Letters reveals that more than half of the fire emissions originate from outside timber and oil-palm concession boundaries. Several studies have shown a similar finding, which is that the dominant cause of fire in both Sumatra and Kalimantan is rural communities. Only targeting plantation companies as the government and NGOs are doing at the moment won’t work. The Indonesian fire and haze problem is complex, with multiple actors playing a role. To address the problem, the government should be more specific in its management, including law enforcement, localized approaches, taking the costs of development into consideration.

A recent study released by an initiative bringing together the UN’s environment, agriculture and development agencies warns that agriculture is the world largest driver for deforestation, responsible for perhaps 80 percent of deforestation globally. Misguided government subsidies aimed at helping farmers produce food more efficiently often end up leading to deforestation. Governments need to broaden approaches to identifying root causes of deforestation and changing the offending policies.

Environmental Investigation Agency, London-based, released a report saying that an alarming escalation of timber flowing into China has been there over the last three years. The majority of trees being cut down was driven by very wealthy Chinese people, who consider luxury products as a status symbol. 153 Chinese nationals were arrested for illegal logging in Myanmar, but were released in July after receiving a presidential pardon.

A study by FSC has found that approximately 300 million cubic metres of FSC certified wood are harvested every year, making up 16.6% of the total global industrial roundwood market.

In a move to bolster links with the Malaysian forestry sector last week FSC held a media conference in Kuala Lumpur to bring together its Malaysian stakeholders, discuss the specific issues in the country’s forests, and how parties can work together to tackle these challenges. FSC opened a new office in Kuala Lumpur in November 2014 and seeks to grow its existing certificate holders from 12 forests and 173 Chain of Custodies.

A new report from Forest Trends has found agricultural concessions in Cambodia provide entry points for destructive logging of natural forests, where some concessions are even located inside designated protected areas. This indicates a recent shift for Cambodian forests, which were previously being encroached by smallholder farmers. The landowners working these concessions are now much larger companies, opening access to previously inaccessible land. The report questions the levels of corruption and transparency within Cambodia - particularly at the point where concessions are identified and awarded – and calls for a logging moratorium while a full legal assessment is done on all designated forest land.

India, through their national scheme the Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF), is the latest country to join PEFC. It is the fifth Asian country to join and can now continue the process of fully developing a national certification scheme and then receiving PEFC endorsement.

Scientists at UCL have defined three phases of global forest loss, the third of which we are living through now. They believe this third phase poses dangerous consequences if not correctly managed at a global scale. They believe the first phase happened over 6000 years ago when hunter-gatherers moved into tropical forests. The second phase saw the emergence of tropical agriculture. Despite altering the forest both of these phases maintained its overall health. The third phase – known as ‘Global Integration’ - has much greater impacts and is defined by distant decision-makers directing forest and agricultural land use. There have been positive moves, such as the UN’s New York Declaration of Forests agreeing to halt deforestation and restore 150 million hectares. But moves to expand the palm oil industry in to Africa are concerning and the study worries about the implications for the continent’s natural forests. The report calls for a renewed attention on forests at the Paris climate talks, where commitments to reduce deforestation and secure alternative finance are essential to success.

While deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen sharply over the past decade, a larger share of forest loss is now being driven by smallholders who are more difficult to control, posing new challenges for the Brazilian government.

Many Southeast Asians are wondering if they will have to withstand another blanket of haze from rainforest fires as Indonesia enters its annual dry season.

Rivers create species. For animals incapable of swimming through or flying over them--like most primates--large rivers can quickly become insurmountable barriers. One of the most famous examples of this evolutionary phenomenon is chimpanzees and bonobos, which are only separated by the Congo River. Now, scientists have discovered a new primate that also appears to follow this rule, blocked off from his cousins by a confluence of rivers in the Peruvian Amazon.

Regions along the porous Myanmar-China border have been a source of smuggled illegal timber to satisfy the growing demand from Chinese industry. Stripping natural resources in this way has prompted some resentment in Myanmar towards its more prosperous neighbour, and China has since protested at the harsh sentence. The border regions, which include Kachin state, have seen higher levels of conflict since 2011 between the Myanmar government and Kachin separatists. This escalation may provide sufficient cover for the illegal logging activity to take place.

Leo Paper reflect on their involvement at the inaugural PREPS Asia Summit in Shenzhen.