The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has been a vital component of sustainable forest management in Poland for over 25 years. Until recently, approximately two-thirds of the total forest area of 9.2 million hectares in the country were FSC-certified. The certified forests are managed by the Regional Directorates of State Forests (RDSF) and two Forest Experimental Stations under the University of Poznań.

Despite initiating dialogue in November 2022 between FSC International and Polish State Forests, six Regional Directorates of State Forests (RDSFs), representing an area of roughly 2 million hectares, have opted to discontinue FSC certification in their respective regions. The affected regions include:

• Gdansk (FSC-certified area: 303,938 ha) - expired
• Torun (FSC-certified area: 456,447 ha) - expired
• Poznan (FSC-certified area: 419,535 ha) - certificate expired on 4 April, 2023
• Warsaw (FSC-certified area: 194,960 ha) - certificate expired on 9 April, 2023
• Radom (FSC-certified area: 325,074 ha) - certificate expired on 1 May, 2023
• Pila (FSC-certified area: 362,770 ha) - recertification granted on 10 March, 2023; license agreement was valid until May 31, 2023

The collaboration between Polish foresters and FSC has enabled many Polish companies to grow their market reach through exporting their FSC certified products to regional and international companies. Today, Polish companies are among global leaders when it comes to the production of furniture, doors, windows, panels, and other wood-based products. There are currently 2,500 FSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certificates in Poland, making it one of the top countries for FSC CoC globally.

Kim Carstensen, Director General of FSC International, says: “We will reinforce our engagement and presence in Poland to ensure that we have a solid foundation for responsible forest management now and in the long term. We will continue to promote sustainable practices throughout the country in line with our values, while safeguarding its global credibility”.

FSC acknowledges the significant implications for certified supply in the country coupled with the existing shortages as a consequence of the Ukraine war. To address this issue, FSC is actively working alongside partners and members to develop strategic solutions to fill the supply gap.

• According to scientists, the deforestation of Brazil has been driven by a deliberate misinformation campaign that has systematically weakened environmental protection laws.
• It has been claimed that the research team from Embrapa Territorial (ET), the branch of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), a federal enterprise for agricultural research and development have used various tactics to dismantle environmental protections in Brazil, such as manufacturing uncertainty in relation to consensual science; making claims that appear as scientific facts but that contradict scientific consensus; and making false claims about scientific credentials.

The National Forest Stewardship Standard (NFSS) for Indonesia was published recently after years of development. It applies to all types and scales of forest management, including timber, non-timber forest products and ecosystem services. It will become effective on 1 December 2020. The transition window for FSC-certified forests is twelve months and will last until 30 November 2021.

Unilever is to partner with U.S. tech company Orbital Insight on a pilot project to trace agricultural commodities sourced, especially palm oil. It claims to be using geolocation data and satellite imagery to identify the individual farms and plantations supplying the palm oil mills in its extended supply chain. The pilot project will be tested out at palm oils mills in Indonesia and soy mills in Brazil, working jointly with its established supply chain monitoring projects.

This report by independent environmental charity Earthsight finds illegal logging in FSC-certified supply chains in Ukraine. Focussed on the Carpathian forests, it found around 100 sites are being felled illegally each spring, when silence periods should protect several endangered animal species including brown bears, wolves and Eurasian lynx. While regulations require Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) before sanitary felling is conducted, no EIAs were found to have been carried out. Evidence sited by Earthsight includes the Ukrainian State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI), local environmental organisations, and research commissioned by WWF Germany.

Earthsight claims this illegal logging has not been picked up in FSC audits because of systematic issues with FSC that go beyond Ukraine: conflicts of interest as auditing bodies are paid by the logging companies they certify; inadequate oversight by Assurance Services International (ASI) which should be holding the auditing bodies to account but is argued to have failed to do so. The report documents a wide array of cases where FSC-certified firms have been accused of illegal logging, clearance of High Conservation Value (HCV) forests, and human rights abuses from all over the world – including in places such as Brazil, China, Congo, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, Russia, Ukraine. Earthsight highlights that FSC has only investigated 13 companies in its 27-year history – 0.02% of the more than 44,000 it has certified.

In response, FSC states it is fully aware of the issues in Ukraine, and insists that whenever illicit acts are identified or reported they are investigated. IKEA says it has started its own investigations, commissioned audits from a 3rd-party independent audit company, asked questions to ASI, and pledges that if any illegal wood is indicated in its product it will take immediate action.

Earthsight’s report focuses on IKEA because, as the biggest buyer of wood in the world, it has the most influence to drive positive change. However, the issues found by Earthsight apply to the publishing industry as much as they do to IKEA. Therefore, the Book Chain Project will further look into Earthsight’s findings and update you as soon as we decide what further action to take.

According to an investigation by the environmental charity Earthsight, in the area of forest - Velykyi Bychkiv within Ukraine, loggers appear to be taking advantage of loopholes that allow for “sanitary felling” during the silent periods in the spring and early summer from 2018 to 2020. Some of the wood in question is found in the supply chain of Swedish furniture maker Ikea, who denied wrongdoing and immediately began their own investigations into all parties mentioned in Earthsight’s report.

A farmer from the Sakai indigenous tribe is sentenced to one year in prison with a fine of 200 million rupiah ($13,800) for cutting down 20 acacia and eucalyptus trees planted by PT Arara Abadi (AA), a subsidiary of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), near his home to plant sweet potatoes for his family.
This case is part of a long-standing land conflict between the Sakai indigenous community and AA. Activists have condemned the verdict as the Sakai tribe settled in the land decades before AA obtained its concession.

The UK is to spearhead a major global crackdown on illegal timber and deforestation, with plans to form a coalition of developing countries against the trade as part of its hosting of crunch UN climate talks this year. All countries are expected to come forward with tougher plans to reduce global emissions as part of COP 26, and experts have said this will only happen if the UK takes the lead in forming a coalition of small and big developing countries, including forested African nations and Indonesia, as well as major economies such as the US, China, India and the EU. Offering assistance to developing countries, in the form of finance and technical expertise, will be vital to that effort.

Metsä Group's Äänekoski mill in Finland now calls itself a ‘bioproducts mill’ as it makes paper and wood for recyclable drinks cartons, clothing and building materials. They re-use the chemical additives and by-products of the production process to make sure they are not wasted. They also deploy drones to digitally map the forest area so they can monitor trees using a mobile phone app and then arrange remotely for contractors to thin or harvest an area when the trees look ready. For more information, please visit Metsä Group's website.

Ten years ago, the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) made a commitment to end deforestation in member companies’ supply chains by 2020. As 2020 approaches, the companies will inevitably miss the deadline. An international coalition of NGOs called this out CGF members and relayed the following expectations in this open letter:
• Communicate a mandatory requirement ensuring suppliers comply with ‘No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation (NDPE) commitments.
• Ensure human rights are respected and compliance with international standards of Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC).
• Establish comprehensive, proactive, and transparent monitoring systems that rapidly detect non-compliance across supply chains and require implementation of the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA) for agricultural development involving land-use change. Assessments should use the Integrated High Conservation Value (HCV)- HCSA Assessment Manual and be approved by the High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN) Quality Review Panel before development
• Publish guidelines to address non compliances, including thresholds for suspension and grievance mechanisms
• Provide incentives and support to upstream suppliers to manage risk
• Publish public facing reports on progress

In the recent Forest forum meeting we shared Complicit in Corruption - a recent report written by non-profit Earthsight, highlighting the widespread corruption in Ukraine's forests, and revealing how illegality permeates the timber supply chain in Ukraine from harvest to export.

Earthsight spent two years running field and undercover investigations in Ukraine. Approximately 70% of Ukraine's timber exports enter the EU and Earthsight's investigations indicate that 40% of this timber is being illegally harvest or traded. The report also claims that a significant volume of illegally harvested timber has received the FSC stamp - the former chief of one of the largest timber producing state-forest enterprises admitted to Earthsight he had found it easy to circumvent FSC checks.

Canadian logging company Resolute Forest Products has filed two lawsuits against various Greenpeace entities, Stand. Earth (formerly known as "ForestEthics"), and some of these organisations' staff members in the United States and Canada. These lawsuits were brought in relation to the organisations' criticism of the environmental impact of Resolute Forest's logging practices in the Canadian boreal region and to their campaigns encouraging customers to hold Resolute to account for its unsustainable forestry practices. The environmental organisations being sued assert that the lawsuits are meritless and constitute "strategic lawsuits against public participation" ("SLAPP") meant to silence their criticisms. Following the filing of Resolute's lawsuits, Greenpeace launched a campaign aiming to stop the use of SLAPPs to silence free speech. As part of this campaign, Greenpeace has received support from over 100 authors in several countries.

FSC has sent a "come clean" ultimatum to APP and its billionaire Indonesian owners, the Widjaja family, following evidence it continues to cut down tropical forests and operate through corporate proxies. A letter was sent to the pulp and paper giant on Monday which sets out the demands FSC expect APP to meet if they want to be readmitted to the council. The ultimatum comes after Greenpeace ended a five year truce with the company earlier this month following an investigation that revealed the company had been destroying tropical forests the entire time the two parties were cooperating on conservation. FSC have demanded APP respond to their letter by Monday, stating publicly their high level commitment to the council’s standards and proposing remedies to Greenpeace’s evidence of deforestation. By June 11th the company will also have to fully disclose their corporate structure and any other violations of the standards.

The publishing initiative run by Carnstone, The Book Chain Project, held its second Asia Summit on 24th of April in Shenzhen, China. It was an opportunity for all the stakeholders in the paper and pulp industry to get together to discuss the latest developments in responsible fibre sourcing. Among the 70 delegates there were paper mills, printers, publishers, retailers, timber experts, and NGOs. The aim of the Summit was to discuss the latest developments on responsible forest sourcing and to share best practice.

The first session included speakers from Carnstone, Chronicle Books, and Donnelly, who shared their understanding on forest sourcing and provided the customer perspective. Next, WWF introduced their work on increasing demand of certified and recycled paper products. IKEA also presented their forest traceability system. Then, IPE and China Water Risk provided their insights on industrial pollution and the water-use pressures present in China.

The next session focused on three major paper mills; UPM, APP and Chenming Paper, sharing their response to the growing expectations and regulations around paper manufacturing. This panel was also joined by TFT who shared their insights on how mills can develop and implement sustainable sourcing systems and encourage engagement further up the supply chain.

The certification schemes, FSC and CFCC, explained how they are evolving to ensure transparency and traceability in global forest supply chains. And the event closed with practical sessions from the Carnstone team, who guided mills and printers to get the most from the online Book Chain Project database. Printers and mills had an opportunity to ask questions, share feedback, and offer ideas and improvements for the future.

Further reading:
Speakers’ slides: https://bookchainproject.com/event?event=5
IPE’s Companies environmental performance monitoring database: http://www.ipe.org.cn/IndustryRecord/Regulatory.aspx?keycode=343j9f9ri329293r3rixxx
China Water Risk website: http://chinawaterrisk.org/
An introduction to FSC certification scheme: https://v.qq.com/x/page/g0639hql3zp.html

The Draft National Forest Policy 2018 is now open for public comments, and will replace the older 1988 policy once it comes into force. Critics are apprehensive about how the draft policy deals with community participation and industrial forestry. The current draft is bereft of knowledge-driven solutions, some experts say.

Following the evaluation of the effectiveness and functioning of the EUTR during its first two years of application, it was noted that the EUTR covers a significant number of timber products, but not all are included in its scope. The evaluation concluded that the European Commission may consider amending the product scope, subject to an impact assessment of options. The European Commission is therefore undertaking an impact assessment to analyse possible changes to the EUTR product scope. As part of this impact assessment process and in line with the European Commission's Better Regulation Guidelines, an extensive consultation of stakeholders is being carried out. The main aim of this public consultation is to gather views and evidence on possible changes to the EUTR product scope.

Environment secretary Michael Gove has approved emergency cash for Brexit preparations at DEFRA, after the department’s top civil servant warned that there could be “severe disruption to vital public services” without it.
Clare Moriarty, DEFRA’s permanent secretary, wrote to Gove on 18 January to request the extra funding. She requested funding for six specific projects, including £5.8m for new IT capability to enable registration and regulation of chemicals placed on the UK market. Work on this is scheduled to begin in February 2018.
DEFRA also needs £500,000 to develop a UK system to manage the quota of fluorinated gases and ozone depleting substances required under the UN Montreal Protocol. This work is scheduled to begin in March.

Study shows that 92.2 percent of tree cover loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 48.2 percent in the Republic of Congo (ROC) is linked to small-scale shifting cultivation. Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) and World Resources Institute’s Congo team mapped the rural complex of DRC and ROC, with forest fragmentation to differentiate between the rural complex, fragmented forest and undisturbed forest. The DRC and ROC rural complex maps together enable better understanding which loss is caused by shifting cultivation cycling back to previously farmed areas, and which shows new deforestation, degradation or fragmentation.

British fast food restaurants and grocery chains, including Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald’s, buy their chicken from Cargill, which feeds its poultry with imported soy, much of it apparently coming from the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado — areas rapidly being deforested for new soy plantations. Retailers have so far not used their leverage over Cargill to compel it to support a soy moratorium expansion.

Global Forest Watch, in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute and Vizzuality, launched Forest Watcher in September. This is a mobile app that allows users to monitor and report on forest change with real-time forest change data of GFW straight from a mobile device. It directs users to the latest deforestation and fire alerts in their area, and provides the ability to prioritize and collect evidence about what they discover. The app is open source and free to download and use.

Canada harvests an astonishing 1.8 million acres of forested lands per year—an area half the size of Connecticut—and almost all of it is clearcut. But as long as there’s a plan on paper to regenerate that forest, many seem to assume that it is happening, despite limited study of what is actually growing back and how well that regrowth meets the ecological values that were lost following harvest, especially its vast boreal forest. The Government of Canada’s annual "State of Canada’s Forests” report focuses on Canada’s low deforestation rate but didn’t mention at all about “forest degradation”.

A report by World Economic Forum and Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 states that the transfer to deforestation-free supply chains could represent an investment opportunity of approximately US$ 200 billion annually. However, although companies are making commitments to deforestation-free pulp and paper in their supply chain, due to the underestimation of the risk, they may have issues meeting their time bound commitments.

One subsidiary of Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (April), Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (Rapp), has constructed a 3km canal through thick peatland on the island of Pedang, Indonesia, which has led to the suspension of their partnership with WWF and Greenpeace. The canal is built for draining peatland for pulp plantations, which is against both the company’s sustainability standards, and also government regulations. However, the president and director of Rapp insisted the action is legal based on a plan approved by the Indonesian government back in 2013, which was before the catastrophic fires of 2015.

Vietnam has largely succeeded in reforestation within its border. Started in the 1980s, accompanying the transition to a market-driven economy, forestry management moved to a multi-sector approach with NGOs, businesses, local communities and management boards involved from originally government control. In 2008, Vietnam become a REDD pilot country, and both Forest Trends and FAO have recorded the increase in forest cover in Vietnam. However, challenge still exits. The demand for wood products in Vietnam is high, and now the country imports much from Cambodia, where illegal and unsustainable loggings happen frequently.

The new documentary thriller, Death by A Thousand Cuts, aired in the Raindance film festival in London on 1 October. The film explores how the fate of forests in two neighbouring countries has exacerbated social conflict, xenophobia, poverty, and even resulted in multiple murders. The documentary reveals how the contrasting fate of forests in these two countries due to different approached to natural resource protection and conservation.

A new report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of the World’s Forests suggests that improving co-operation between nations’ farming and forestry sectors will help to reduce deforestation and improve food security. The report shows that in more than 20 countries the increasing forest cover and food security can happen at the same time, and among those countries the common features are secure land tenure and effective land-use planning. As thus, the coordinated policies between forestry and agriculture are essential, which are lack in many countries actually.

A recent study released by 12 international and Indonesian NGOs reveal that Asia Pulp &Paper (APP) is building one of the world’s largest pulp mills without a sustainable wood supply in South Sumatra. This analysis indicates that the current planted area owned by APP is insufficient in supporting this new mill as well as the 2 existing mills. This report suggests that APP may fail to meet its ‘zero deforestation commitments’ made in 2013 which included ‘100% sustainable plantation wood for pulp’.

The Madison Paper Industries mill is closing in May, putting more than 200 employees out of work and adding to the decline of Maine’s paper industry. Madison Paper will be the fifth Maine mill to shut down in a little over two years, and its closure will leave just six mills operating in the state. Although some mills continue to operate profitably, the domestic paper industry has been grappling with the declining demand and cheaper imports, leading in recent years to mill closures, bankruptcies and layoffs.

The EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) News have provided an update on the operation of the EU’s law to address illegal logging from March 2015 to March 2016. This issue outlines the support from the European Commission and the implementation of the regulations by its’ member states, indicating how they insure its’ proper application. Relevant publications and updates in international laws against illegal logging are also reported.

Indonesia’s anti-graft commission said government agencies have agreed on a plan to combat corruption in the forestry industry that costs the state billions of dollars in lost revenue and is behind fires that pollute Southeast Asia. The plan leans heavily on technology to build an accurate picture of where illegal deforestation and conversion of peatland into farmland is occurring, using Landsat satellites, drones and LIDAR pulsed laser-based mapping.

The World Resources Institute released a new study, which finds that nearly all of the recent tree cover loss in several “frontiers of plantation expansion” is happening outside established plantation boundaries. The author hopes that the study can help in land-use planning that directs plantation development and expansion to already-degraded areas rather than supplanting forests.

A report on the activities of the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) in Guatemala show the positive potential impact of community based forest management. The members of ACOFOP include small furniture manufacturers sell products approved by the Rainforest Alliance.

The article refers to a report published last month by the World Resources Institute which investigated both the Guatemalan concessions and a similar model found in Brazil’s indigenous communities in the Amazon. The WRI estimated that Guatemala stood to benefit up to $800 million over the next two decades through community management of forest concessions.

Prince Charles has called upon the world leaders to work together on the better protection of the forests of the world at the UN Climate conference in Paris. In a speech given at a meeting at COP21 2015, Prince Charles said too many companies still turned a blind eye to their commercial activities destroying forests, and that protecting forests was not enough - the world needed to re-forest deforested lands.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Environmentalists have called Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s commitments on reducing deforestation and supporting renewable energy ‘weak’ and representing little more than maintaining the status quo. Greenpeace Brazil say the target of restoring 12 million hectares of forest represents only half of the reforestation requirements under Brazil’s Forest Code and are just another commitment to comply with existing laws, not a bold new initiative.
Brazil has, however, worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than any large country over the past decade, with emissions from all sectors having fallen by around 40% since 2005, with an 85% cut in carbon dioxide from deforestation.

Imazon’s newest study shows that, between August 2012 and July 2014, 90% deforestation in Brazilian Amazon happened in protected areas, while 10% occurred outside protected areas. During the two years’ period, forest loss was heavily concentrated in areas where infrastructure was expanding and management plans and funding were lacking. The study also recommends possible measures to against the deforestation, including law enforcement, eviction of non-traditional settlers from illegally occupied forests, and state resettlement schemes, etc.

Orbital Insight is a start-up founded by James Crawford, a former Google and NASA robotics and artificial intelligence expert, to track changes in tropical forests over time through the collection of satellite images. Orbital Insight aims to use deep learning, a technique used by Google and Facebook, to analyse data from a wide range of satellite image sources. The company will set its machine vision algorithms loose on the images to detect small alterations in the landscape that could be missed by the human eye. Having worked for private companies before using this technology, Orbital Impact hopes that the company will be able to help anticipate the damage of deforestation before it is done.

A report from Prince Charles' International Sustainability Unit has found that we are still some way from realising the full potential of tropical forests in stabilising global climate, agricultural yields, ecosystem services and local livelihoods. The report, Tropical Forests: A Review, argues that forests have such incredible potential because of their dual role as carbon sinks. Less deforestation means less carbon is released and as the forest continues to grow, more carbon is locked in to the biomass. The report also highlights the importance of tropical forests to regional and global rainfall cycles. This is particularly relevant for Brazil where a severe drought has impacted cities and major agricultural areas. Modelling has shown that deforestation in the Amazon and Congo Basin could affect rainfall patterns across Europe and North America. The report urges forests be prioritised as a significant solution as we approach binding international agreements on climate change.

A toolkit, named the HCS Approach, has been developed by a group of organisations with the aim of identifying High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests. The toolkit was endorsed last week by major NGOs and plantation companies in Singapore including Golden Agri Resources, APP, Wilmar, Greenpeace, WWF, RAN, Unilever and The Forest Trust. The toolkit is seen as a crucial element in developing sustainable plantations and the companies involved will now begin the steps towards implementation in the field. HCS sits alongside HCV

A study recently published in Forest Ecology and Management examines the carbon stock value of forests in Guyana, finding dramatic differences between different kinds of cover and land-use types. Tropical forests are among the most valuable in terms of carbon stocks. Globally, tropical forests sequester about 2.4 billion metric tons, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. The new research found that carbon values differ according to forest type and usage pattern; for instance, carbon values from undisturbed forests cannot be applied in inhabited community lands.

It’s been a year since Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd (APRIL) released its latest ‘Sustainable Forest Management Plan’. APRIL claims to have an ‘ongoing commitment to conservation and a sustainable approach to landscape development.’ But it plans to continue clearing forests until 2020. It also refuses to stop draining peatlands - even though doing so wrecks the climate, and leads to forest fires and floods. Over the past year, Greenpeace researchers have been monitoring APRIL’s operations on Padang Island, off the coast of Sumatra. The photos they took show what APRIL’s real objective is to clear as much of Indonesia's rainforest as it can get away with before it is forced to stop.

Despite being covered in commodity concessions and viewed by some as becoming a focal point for the Indonesian government’s palm oil development in the country’s eastern half, the provinces of Papua and West Papua have, rather mysteriously, recorded very low deforestation rates compared to the rest of the archipelago. But rather than represent a pleasant surprise for environmentalists and the peoples inhabiting these restive lands, the reality of the situation is a bit more complex. Conflicting numbers published by the government and NGOs tell vastly different stories about what’s really happening on the ground. While it may be understood that large-scale deforestation in Papua and West Papua is still in its early stages, finding accurate deforestation data for these two provinces is no easy task.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has been documenting and exposing the illicit trade in stolen timber in Indonesia for more than 15 years. According to a new EIA report, it’s all a huge illusion that Indonesia appears to bring rainforest logging under control. Traditional logging has been replaced by the mass clearance of rainforest for oil palm plantations, creating massive supplies of hugely profitable but often illegal timber. And lurking beneath the surface is a pervasive network of criminality and corruption. NGOs and progressive government figures have emphasised the need to look beyond sectoral legislation and to corruption laws in order to address this.

According to Myanmar military officials 122 foreign national (mainly Chinese) and 20 Myanmar citizens were arrested for illegal logging and other alleged crimes in northern Myanmar. Along with the arrests, authorities seized 436 logging trucks and 14 pickup trucks loaded with logs, stimulant drugs, raw opium and Chinese currency. Locals blame the continuous illegal logging on the lack of enforcement as authorities and rebel officers are commonly bribed in exchanged for permission for illegal logging in the area. Unfortunately the insatiable Chinese appetite for hardwood furniture and a lengthy and porous border enables this illegal activity to continue.

• 2014 was the ‘year of the zero deforestation commitment’, particularly in the palm oil sector but also for agribusinesses like Cargill.
• Plantation forestry, in all of its various forms, is still seen as one of the biggest drivers of deforestation.
• APP continues to see praise for their work implementing the Forest Conservation Policy.
• APRIL continues to be criticised for their weak policy and poor performance.
• Global Forest Watch was lauded as a significant leap forward for open source forest monitoring.
• Drones made their first foray into forest conservation and are being used by Cargill, and imminently by Brazilian forest agencies, for monitoring and enforcement.
• The mood in Indonesia is quietly optimistic, with a new government in place departments have merged (Ministry of Forestry and Ministry of Environment merging), and there was a widespread crackdown on corruption.
• NGOs have turned their attention to a new aspect of the pulp and paper sector: dissolving pulp, which is used in a diverse range of products including clothing and toiletries.

APP are set to start communicating the work that they have done on their zero deforestation policy, which came into force in early 2013. They want to communicate to a wider audience all that they have to say around high conservation values and high carbon stock, but in a manner that everyone can understand. APP’s zero deforestation policy has had a positive impact on the company’s bottom line, and companies such as Nestle and Staples have started working with APP again.

The Peruvian environment ministry has confirmed that deforestation rates in the country have increased significantly in 2013. The actual forest cleared in 2013 was almost 30% higher than the average since 2001 – spiking at 145,000 hectares, compared to an average of 113,000 hectares. A majority of the loss has been attributed to agriculture. The 2013 spike hasn’t happened in isolation and data from recent years – including aggregated forest loss alerts from Global Forest Watch - has shown an upward trend of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.

Pulp and paper giant APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd) has been found to be violating its own sustainability policy by continuing to source fibre from peatlands in Riau, Indonesia. The investigation, from Eyes on the Forest, shows that APRIL affiliate Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP) is operating in breach of APRIL’s pledge not to clear potential high conservation value (HCV) areas. Dramatic photographs released by Greenpeace-Indonesia in June clearly showed natural forest clearance on deep peat areas, and ongoing preparations to turn the land in to plantations. APRIL says this activity doesn’t violate its policy commitments and clearing is only taking place in non-HCV areas. APRIL is under mounting pressure to clean up its supply chain since its largest competitor, APP, signed a comprehensive zero deforestation policy in 2013. APP’s subsequent commitment to support conservation and restoration of forests equal in size to its own operations was also applauded by environmental groups. APRIL has since said that it will match APP on this commitment – see APRIL’s letter responding to the Greenpeace photographs in June 2014.

The Brazilian government has said forest clearance in the Amazon has decreased by 18% over the past year to July 2014, but environmental NGOs disagree saying their data shows increased rates of forest loss. Brazil’s environment minister, Izabella Teixeira, said approximately 4800km2 was lost between August 2013 and July 2014. This was down from 5900km2 during the same period a year earlier. But WWF and Imazon disagree and say that alternative satellite monitoring systems, different to those used by the government, show a staggering increase in forest loss of over 460%. Ms Teixeira maintained that the official government estimate was the most accurate: “Anything else is speculation. We have been working hard to end deforestation.”

A report published by Landesa and Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) looks at Asia Pulp and Paper’s acquisitions of forest lands from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s in Guangxi and Yunnan provinces where it leased large blocks of collectively-owned forests for conversion to industrial eucalyptus plantations. The report finds that the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) by local peoples was not applied in some areas, and that both APP and local regulators failed to abide by all laws governing land acquisition. The report acknowledged that APP "cooperated fully" with the researchers and is currently reviewing the problems.

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), a long-time target of environmental campaigners, committed in February 2013 to protect and restore a million hectares of forest across Indonesia under its Forest Conservation Policy. This video presented by Tony Juniper, an advisor to APP, highlights key aspects of the policy. The policy requires its suppliers to not only protect natural forest resources, but also biodiversity and human rights. APP has worked with The Forest Trust (TFT) to help develop and implement the policy. And the company has adopted the High Conservation Value (HCV) assessment, developed by the Forest Stewardship Council, to ensure the values of natural forest are fully understood. APP is also adopting High Carbon Stock (HCS) survey to understand the location of big stocks of carbon. The restoration commitment of APP targets nine “landscape” across Sumatra and Kalimantan, regions where the company sources its fibre.

A new report, titled Disrupting the Global Commodity Business, published by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) argues that a global transition could enable the world to produce more food, fuel and fibre without destroying more forests. Chris Elliot, the Executive Director of CLUA, writes: “we must not only shift commodity production away from native forests, but also protect these forests by increasing recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and rural communities to manage them”. The report also highlights the role that activism has played in disrupting business-as-usual approaches to commodity production. However, it emphasizes that lasting change will come in moving from “disruption” to “transformation” of how commodities are produced. To the end, the report focuses on two key areas – supply chain management and commodity governance, illustrating the ingredients needed to fundamentally shift big business toward less damaging practices while at the same time supporting local communities.

A tree-by-tree battle between activists and timber workers more than three decades in Tasmania tore apart the Apple Isle. Finally, a historic peace deal came in 2012. Hodgman’s government removed 400,000 hectares of native forest from reserves, designing it “future potential production forest land” – available to be logged in six years’ time. The Hodgman government is also putting anti-protest laws aimed squarely at the environment movement. Plantations in Africa, south-east Asia and South America had come online and flooded the solid wood and woodchip markets with cheap, plentiful supply. Tasmania’s major green groups are plotting their next steps. The Hodgman government has created a ministerial council to advise on the future of the state’s forestry industry, without any environmentalist invited. The Hodgman government’s pro-logging drive makes the negotiations between environmentalists and the industry impossible.

An independent study by The Forest Trust and Ata Marie have found that APP has sufficient plantation resources to supply a massive new mill being built in OKI, South Sumatra. The study did however uncover one minor gap in supply in 2020. Aida Greenbury, APP’s managing director of sustainability said “The TFT report forecasts a minor gap in supply in 2020. However it is clear that with a harvesting rotation of around five years, improvements made now can bridge that gap by increasing productivity of supplier plantations through improved yield, better tree stock and reduction of waste. As such, we have been developing an action plan to ensure we have sufficient plantation fibre to meet the pulp requirements of our existing mills as well as our future mill in South Sumatra, in line with our target to become a 100% plantation business for pulp production.

According to a paper entitled ‘these are the days of lasers in the jungle’ published in Carbon Balance and Management, assessing global forest carbon stocks using a fleet of aeroplanes fitted with advanced LiDAR could be done for a fraction of the cost of a typical Earth observation satellite mission. The authors argue that it could be possible to assess the carbon stock of every single square hectare of tropical forest on Earth within this decade using this modern sampling method.

According to the 2012 World Bank report, an estimated 80% of Peruvian timber export comes from illegal logging. Despite the fact that the law requires loggers to show where the timber has come from, the activity of illegal logging is still rife here for many reasons. Authorities rarely patrol the remote and inaccessible areas where the activity occurs, and, as explained in this article, many officers are happy to accept bribes to turn a blind eye.

The start-up Rainforest Connection (RFCx) has announced a partnership with a Brazilian NGO to bring its alert system to the forest homeland of the Tembé people. Rainforest Connection's system is built using a network of recycled Android smartphones, which are modified to detect specific sounds, including the audio signatures to chainsaws, gunshots, and vehicles. When the system registers one of these sounds, it sends a signal – in real-time – to local authorities, who can then potentially take action to stop illegal logging or poaching as it happens. Each RFCx device can monitor roughly three square kilometers of forest. The project has received celebrity endorsement from musician Neil Young.

According to a letter signed by signed by Huma, Forest Peoples Program, Rainforest Action Network, Wahana Bumi Hijau, Scale Up, Jaringan Masyarakat Gambut Jambi, Jaringan Masyarakat Gambut Riau, and Pusaka, APRIL’s new forest policy allows the company to continue destroying rainforests and peatlands for industrial plantations. The letter highlights a dozen concerns over APRIL's policy, including a lack of a moratorium on natural forest conversion, failure to identify and protect high carbon stock (HCS) areas, and unclear commitments on resolving social conflicts and embracing the concept of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) from affected local communities. It also says that the policy appears to not apply to APRIL’s sister companies or suppliers. The letter comes days after Greenpeace documented APRIL-owned PT. Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper destroying peat forest on Pulau Padang, an island off Sumatra. In response to the report, APRIL said the clearing was in line with its forest conservation policy.

By declaring its intention to restore and support conservation of one million hectares of natural forest and other ecosystems in Sumatra and Kalimantan, APP has substantially strengthened the Forest Conservation Policy it announced in February 2013. WWF Indonesia said “we remain cautious of these new developments but we are encouraged with the level of ambition, which is unprecedented.” WWF’s tacit support of the restoration pledge reveals the extent of this engagement. It was only last month that WWF issued a brief to paper buyers warning them to wait to resume business with APP.

The stationary giant Staples is the first company to have rekindled its relationship with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) just over a year after APP announced the implementation of its forest conservation policy (FCP). Staples has agreed to sell two paper products manufactured by APP and produced at APP’s Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper mill in Indonesia. The move from Staples has been met with criticism from some eNGO’s who have accused it of “jumping the gun.” Campaigners from the Rainforest Action Network staged a demonstration outside a branch of Staples.

Activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) staged a protest today at a Staples store in El Cerrito, Ca to communicate their objection to the office supply giant’s recent decision to resume purchasing paper from Indonesia’s highly controversial company Asia Pulp and Paper (APP).
“Given APP’s track record of broken commitments and the fact that APP has yet to finish environmental studies, put forest conservation plans in place or get independent verification that they are actually working, Staples is jumping the gun by renewing business with APP.” said Lafcadio Cortesi, Asia director at Rainforest Action Network.

The Rainforest Alliance has agreed to conduct an audit of Asia Pulp and Paper’s progress in implementing the the zero deforestation policy the forest giant signed last year. The organisation will evaluate APP’s progress in meeting four commitments in its forest conservation policy including protecting high conservation value areas and high carbon stock forests, managing peatlands to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and obtaining free, prior informed consent from local communities before developing new plantations.

Greenpeace has reported that Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) faces expulsion from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) if it fails to stop clearing rainforests and peatlands on the island of Sumatra. APRIL has twelve months to comply or face expulsion from the WBCSD. APRIL is one of the largest deforesters in Sumatra, with 60% of its wood coming from natural forests. Campaigns against APRIL have been stepped up a notch since its biggest competitor – Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) – signed a comprehensive forest conservation policy last February.

A recently published paper has highlighted the fact that large volumes of rosewood logs have disappeared from depots in Northeast Madagascar. The logs are smuggled by small boats to larger ships waiting offshore. It was reported that traffickers were offering around 1 million Malagasy Ariary ($450) per household in the Masoala peninsula to turn a blind eye regarding rosewood.

An article published in the journal ‘Science’ has said that efforts by countries and companies to achieve ‘zero net deforestation’ may be having the unintended effect of rainforests being replaced by less valuable plantations. As the approach does not distinguish clearly between the different values of replanted areas and natural forests, it means some countries are guilty of replacing their native forests with exotic species. A more favourable way of protection would be for companies, states and other groups to set separate reduction targets in forest loss and for reforestation efforts.

Google Earth has helped to create a new high-resolution global map of forest loss and gain, with a resolution of 30m. In the twelve years that the map spans (2000 – 2012), the Earth lost enough trees to cover the UK six times. It isn’t all bad news however - Brazil cut their annual forest loss in half between 2003-4 and 2010-11.

Illegal logging has fuelled the rapid disappearance of commercially viable forests and threatened indigenous livelihoods in the Solomon Islands. But local communities are confronting the companies responsible and taking them through the courts.

Although certification is often attributed with helping to reduce deforestation, little is known about the effectiveness of many of the schemes. It is vital that we understand how these commitments can be transformed into results if we want to measure changes in deforestation rates. This article suggests that addressing deforestation in the most successful manner may derive from using a combination of approaches, and certification is just one of these approaches.

In response to the dramatic decline of forest cover in West Africa, 15 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have agreed to work together across borders to protect and manage the region’s forests and wildlife. The Convergence Plan for the Sustainable Management and use of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa was adopted alongside the Sub-regional Action Program to Combat Desertification at a meeting on 12 September 2013.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Global Forest Assessment 2010 reported that 870,000 ha of forests were lost in the sub-region each year between 2000 and 2010. The convergence plan notes that these losses were due primarily to illegal cutting, brush fires, extensive agriculture (farming over large areas of land with low productivity) and transhumance (moving livestock from one grazing area to another), as well as legal, political, technical and economic limitations.

APP has announced two breaches of its forest moratorium on natural forest clearance. The first small-scale clearance for a pre-planned community project had already been reported. The second case appears to be an outright breach of the policy in Sumatra by three companies which cleared 69 hectares of high carbon stock forest in a "No Go" zone. APP called the violation "unacceptable" and says it will improve sign-off procedures to address the breach.

Data released this week by Terra-i, a collaborative mapping initiative, shows that deforestation in Ecuador for the first three months of 2013 was pacing more than 300 percent ahead of last year's rate. The report comes shortly after Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa killed off a proposed plan to prohibit oil drilling in Yasuni National Park in exchange for payments equivalent to half the value of the park's unexploited oil reserves.

Terra-i, a collaboration between the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the School of Business and Engineering (HEIG-VD) in Switzerland and King’s College London (KCL), uses NASA satellite data to detect deforestation in Latin America on 16-day basis. The system shows that between Jan 1 and Mar 7 this year, some 9,075 ha of Ecuador's forests were cleared. By comparison, 2,931 ha of forest were chopped down during the year-earlier period.

The Paraguayan government has extended the “Zero Deforestation Law” for a further five years, resulting in an important conservation win for this highly threatened eco-region.

The Land Conversion Moratorium for the Atlantic Forest of Paraguay, also known as the “Zero Deforestation Law” was enacted in 2004 and dramatically slowed the country’s deforestation rate by prohibiting the transformation and conversion of forested areas in Paraguay's eastern region. The Atlantic Forest corridor covers Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, and is one of the world's most endangered tropical rainforests, with just 7 percent of its original surface coverage remaining.

Paraguay previously had the second-highest deforestation rate in the world, and nearly 7 million hectares of Atlantic Forest were lost to slash-and-burn methods of agriculture and ranching. Most of the remaining forests have been exploited for timber, and some are second growth forests recovering from deforestation. After Paraguay approved the Zero Deforestation Law for the eastern part of the country in 2004, there was a decrease of deforestation by about 90%.

Jakarta, 3 September 2013 - The palm oil sector was the single largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia between 2009-2011, accounting for about a quarter of the country’s forest loss, revealed Greenpeace International in new mapping analysis published today. The analysis shows that significant deforestation took place in concessions currently owned by members of the palm oil industry’s largest sustainability organisation, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, including companies such as Singapore-based Wilmar International. More damning is the revelation that RSPO concessions accounted for 39% of the fire hotspots on palm oil concessions in Riau during January-June 2013.

"The RSPO wants its members to be industry leaders in sustainability, but its current standards leave them free to destroy forests and drain peatland. Year after year, Indonesia's forest fires and haze wreak havoc on the region, and the palm oil sector is a main culprit. While RSPO members might have no-fire policies, the peatland they have cleared and drained is like a tinderbox – one spark is all it takes," said Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace International’s Indonesia Forest Campaign.

Germany’s EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) competent authority, BLE, is investigating suspected breaches of the law.

BLE was apparently tipped off by its Belgian counterpart and Greenpeace about several consignments of wenge (often referred to as Congolese Rosewood) delivered via Antwerp to a number of German customers.

Greenpeace alleges that the timber comes from an illegal source in Democratic Republic of Congo and contravenes the EUTR.

One report showed a complicated supply chain with the timber being imported from the Congo to Belgium by a Swizz trader, and from there on to Germany.

Following an investigation into allegations by Indonesian NGO Eyes on the Forest that a forest concession was cleared in breach of APP’s ‘No Deforestation’ policy, the company has announced that it was accidentally in breach of its policy. Eyes on the Forest published evidence in May that 70 hectares belonging to APP subsidiary PT. Riau Indo Agropalma (RIA) had been cleared. APP and The Forest Trust (TFT) – the NGO working with APP to implement its policy – then investigated the matter and have acknowledged that it did constitute a breach of the policy. However, the clearance was following an agreement mandated under Indonesian law to implement a community development programme. APP stated that an alternative arrangement should have been agreed through consultation with the community and that they are now reviewing internal sign-off procedures.

The European Space Agency has given the go ahead to develop a satellite which use a radar system to “weigh” forests. The primary mission is to calculate the amount of carbon stored in the world’s forests. It will also monitor any changes in forest cover over the course of its five-year mission which is expected to launch in 2020. It is hoped that the data gathered will provide a basis for agreements under REDD+.

The Malaysian Government has launched MYTLAS to verify the legality of Malaysian wood products. The country is currently negotiating a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Programme (FLEGT). It appears likely that Peninsular Malaysia and the state of Sabah will conclude a VPA with the EU separately from the state of Sarawak which will make arrangements to participate in the VPA later. Sarawak has been at the centre of allegations of primary rainforest clearance and the Chief Minister has been accused by the NGO Bruno Manser Fund of money-laundering profits from forest clearance in Switzerland. There are concerns that a partial VPA would undermine FLEGT by setting a precedent whereby countries can sell legal timber into the EU while continuing deforestation in certain regions.

WWF has alleged that APP’s deforestation policy will not provide "any real conservation benefits". According to an analysis by Eyes on the Forest the policy protects "at most 5,000 hectares of natural forest" while it accuses APP’s operations of deforesting more than 2 million hectares since the 1980s. APP denies that there have been any breaches of the policy (see story below) and says that it intends to release the results of its analysis on the amount of forest saved by the new policy.

TFT published the following statement on their website with the full report: ‘TFT has carried out a thorough technical study into alleged allegations of APP suppliers clearing forest in West Kalimantan Province and has produced the below report which shows no evidence of any violation of APP's forest clearance moratorium.’

MPs and policymakers from 33 of the world’s major economies gathered at the first GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit in London. The Summit concluded with a pledge which recognises that forest loss contributes approximately 17 per cent of GHG emissions each year and commits the legislators to promote and advance the REDD+ mechanism in their own countries. REDD+ offers forest nations access to new finance in return for the development of effective and independently assessed forest protection schemes.

Analysis of the prospects for Burma’s forests in the wake of international sanctions being lifted. Aside from some ad hoc exploitation Burma’s primary forests have remained largely intact and are home to a rich diversity of wildlife. Meanwhile Burma’s leaders appear to be taking a measured approach to environmental planning with the recent postponement of a Chinese-sponsored dam citing environmental concerns and civil society in the country is increasingly active. However, an EU FLEGT report published last year noted that the government does not collect or publish detailed data on the forest sector and concluded that the forest sector has become increasingly corrupt.

APP has received SVLK timber legality certification on its ninth and final mill. Indonesia’s Timber Legality Assurance System (SVLK) ensures that all exported products are traceable to verifiable points of origin. The EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under which SVLK has been developed is expected to become operational in 2013.

The Forest Trust (TFT) has revealed that it is working with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) on an overall framework for sustainability which includes and goes beyond legal compliance. TFT has previously worked successfully with Golden Agri Resources, Indonesia’s largest palm oil company which sits under the same ownership as APP. TFT plans to publish regular updates once it believes that APP is making significant progress.

FSC has appointed a new Director General. Kim Carstensen succeeds Andre De Freitas and brings with him 20 years of experience at WWF Denmark and WWF International focussing on conservation, development and global climate issues.

The Global Canopy Program is promoting the use of smartphones by indigenous communities to protect their forests. The strategy would see smartphone apps used to collect geographic data and photographs. This local data would then be linked to remote sensing data to enhance the monitoring of forest management. Up until now the effectiveness of community forest management projects in halting deforestation has been brought into question. The hope is that smartphones would play a significant role in helping local communities to manage their forests though there are some concerns that this would reduce the role of communities to simply collecting data without having input using their local knowledge on how their forests should be managed.

APP has announced that three of its mills in Java have achieved SVLK certification. The SVLK system creates a chain of custody process which aims to ensure that mills only receive and process timber from legal sources and that all export products can be traced to verifiable points of origin.

CIFOR highlighted the need for a new approach to enabling smallholder and community-managed forests to achieve certification in a side event organised by FSC at the RIO+20 Conference. They used an example in Bolivia where cases of theft were reported among the members. CIFOR believe that one of the reasons for this is due to insecurity as a result of formalising property rights which have cut some community members off from their traditional harvesting area. Additionally, the requirement to rotate no-take zones could lead to conflict within the community. CIFOR is in the process of collaboratively developing a new paradigm for smallholder and community forest management which will take into account the differing uses community members have for the forest and acknowledge that collective decision-making in a community may not be feasible.

In a speech at CIFOR Indonesian President Yudhoyono admitted to mistakes in policy in the past which encouraged deforestation, but asserted that Indonesia is now set to become a leader in "sustainable forestry". However, CIFOR’s Daniel Murdiyarso pointed out several concerns which weren’t addressed by the speech, including the fact that a reduction in the deforestation rate does not correlate directly with a reduction in emissions: much of Indonesia’s deforestation is happening in carbon-dense peat forests which are targeted for palm oil estates and pulp and paper plantations and deforestation of these areas has a greater impact on emissions than deforestation in other areas.

In a speech at CIFOR Indonesian President Yudhoyono admitted to mistakes in policy in the past which encouraged deforestation, but asserted that Indonesia is now set to become a leader in "sustainable forestry". However, CIFOR’s Daniel Murdiyarso pointed out several concerns which weren’t addressed by the speech, including the fact that a reduction in the deforestation rate does not correlate directly with a reduction in emissions: much of Indonesia’s deforestation is happening in carbon-dense peat forests which are targeted for palm oil estates and pulp and paper plantations and deforestation of these areas has a greater impact on emissions than deforestation in other areas.

Press release from APP promoting its Sustainability Roadmap for 2020. Key milestones will include having the capacity to be wholly reliant on raw materials from plantations by 2015; all current APP suppliers operating by the High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) standards by 2015; and all current suppliers having credible certification for Sustainable Forest Management by 2020.

WWF highlighting their concerns around Brazil’s Forest Code Bill. These include pardoning of previous deforestation around springs, headwaters and wetlands; reduced protection riverbank forest; and allowing restoration of areas to be done through plantations of eucalyptus and other non-native species. WWF also points out that President Rousseff’s amendments won’t be approved until after the Rio 20+ Summit.

Opinion piece putting forward the case for a credible, reliable, accessible and transparent mapping system for Indonesia’s forest and land use. This comes on the back of the debate between Greenpeace and the Indonesian Government on the scale of forest cover loss.

The Google Earth Outreach team has awarded a grant to Eyes on the Forest and WWF to host, store and manage map data on Sumatran rainforest. The tool will incorporate a number of layers including forest loss over time, species distribution, conservation intervention priority areas, restoration priority areas, degraded lands and government protected areas. Eyes on the Forest and WWF hope that the data can be used to urge decision-makers to take steps to protect natural forests.

As part of its new policy, APP said it will suspend further natural forest clearance on the 1.1 million hectares of pulpwood concessions it owns until assessments have been carried out to identify areas of high conservation value forest (HCVF). APP will also be asking its independent suppliers, who control 1.6 million hectares to accept the key principles of HCVF and comply by 31st December 2014. On APP’s Rainforest Realities website, Aida Greenbury, Managing Director of Sustainability, said “It is the aim of APP’s policy to exclude HCVF from the supply chain”.

Further media coverage on APP’s new policy.

Further media coverage on APP’s new policy.

Pressure is building on President Dilma Rousseff to veto The Forest Code ahead of the deadline on 25th May. The Forest Code reduces the obligation on landowners to protect Amazonian forest cover down from 80 to 50 per cent, leading to the potential loss of 190 million acres of forest according to the Brazilian Government’s Institute for Applied Economic Research. It is being seen as a battle between the increasingly powerful ‘ruralistas’, legislators representing agricultural interests, and a range of other stakeholders including environmental NGOs, leading national scientific groups, Brazilian celebrities and even many large businesses such as Tetra Pak Brasil.

In response to the new policy Greenpeace cited APP’s commitment to protect HCVF in a New York Times advert in 2006. Despite this commitment it has been reported by the NGO coalition Eyes on the Forest that APP has cleared areas identified as HCVF by third parties.

Further media coverage on APP’s new policy.

Lord Mandelson said his work with APP related to the new EUTR VPA requirement for Indonesian companies to supply only legally harvested timber. He said he would be advising APP on how to make the new regime a success and how to communicate it with customers and stakeholders.

According to an Indonesian weekly news magazine the Ministry of Environment is preparing a civil suit against fourteen pulp and paper companies – twelve linked with APP and two with APRIL – for illegally clearing forests on Sumatra. The value of the timber only represents four per cent of the damages being claimed, the balance is for ‘ecological losses’. The Ministry of Forestry is opposing the lawsuit.

Major amendments to Brazil’s Forest Code are on the brink of passing into law. The changes allow reserve areas in the Amazon to be reduced from 80 to 50% and reduce the restriction on forest clearance near rivers. Agriculturalists have welcomed the amendments.

A remote sensing company has signed a deal with the Brazilian space agency to deliver near real-time satellite imagery to monitor forest clearing in the Amazon rainforest and target illegal logging as it happens. Illegal loggers have grown smart to the current monitoring system by clearing smaller areas to evade detection but the new system will provide a much higher level of granularity in its imaging. Such technology is seen as important in the development of an effective REDD+ programme.

Summary of the latest developments in the Greenpeace APP campaign. It notes the change in tone in APP’s response: they have responded to the latest allegations regarding their use of ramin (a CITES-listed species) only by saying they are cooperating with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry’s investigation, and didn’t follow their usual line of defence which is to question the substance of Greenpeace’s allegations.