Fires are raging at a record rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, and scientists warn that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change. According to INPE, more than 1½ soccer fields of Amazon rainforest are being destroyed every minute of every day and the fires are burning at the highest rate. Environmental activists and organisations accuse Brazil's president -Jair Bolsonaro of relaxing environmental controls in the country and encouraging deforestation.

April, one of the world’s largest pulp and paper producers and controls a million hectares of forests in Indonesia, announced that it had stopped clearing forests as part of its operations. Last year, it also launched its sustainable policy, including a pledge to halt forest clearing in 2010. Now the company is called a “champion” by the environmental group, Greenpeace, which used to be a fierce critic of the company. Also Greenpeace vowed to monitor April’s implementation of new policy closely. Activists said that battle is still far from won.

In response to TFT's criticisms of the Chain of Custody system, FSC issued a response highlighting the controls in place to maintain a robust system. The article does not respond to all of TFT's points but rather focuses on the COC improvements that are underway.

The Viet Nam Administration of Forestry announced that over 13,700 violations of forest protection and timber management laws were reported in the first six months of 2012. Around 623ha of forest land have been lost in this period as a result of changes in forest use purposes, illegal logging and forest fires. Government ministries working on the issue aim to tighten controls on the wood processing industry and local authorities have been ordered to review existing forestry projects and ensure that forest protection programmes are adequately funded.