New logging roads are helping to spread the Spiked pepper tree (Piper aduncum), native to the American tropics, to areas further afield. It was first introduced to Indonesia in 1952, and at first its spread in Borneo was slow. However new observations have shown these trees are advancing along logging routes at a minimum rate of 5km each year. At this pace, the pepper trees threaten one of Borneo’s richest areas of flora.

Monks and villagers in Ubon Ratchathani’s Khemmarat district of Thailand have teamed up to protect their 100-year old Siamese rosewood forest from illegal logging gangs. The rosewood trees in this area have grown naturally for 100 years, and most are more than six metres high. By closing the temple doors during the night, the monks are preventing illegal logging gangs from entering the temple and cutting down the trees. Most illegally cut rosewood trees are transferred to China via Laos and Vietnam. During 2008 – 2014, over 27,000 pieces of Siamese rosewood have been confiscated by police and some 395 offenders arrested.

A study by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford has found that forests are better protected when local communities manage them locally. The research was undertaken in Cambodia, a country that has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. Alternative methods of forest protection, such as community forestry, are needed in countries that have high levels of corruption. The study found that sites maintained by locals had fewer signs of man-made damage, such as stumps and burned trees.

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.

A new £15m forestry research centre at Birmingham University will study how climate change is affecting Britain's woodlands and examine how trees can be protected from the threat of invasive pests and diseases, such as the Chalara fraxinea virus which has caused the spread of Ash dieback across the country.

The Indonesian language version of the report from Human Rights Watch called “The Dark Side of Green Growth: Human Rights Impacts of Weak Governance in Indonesia’s Forestry Sector” was released today. The report says that the new FLEGT VPA between the EU and Indonesia does not address whether harvesting of the timber has violated local community rights and it does not address corruption in the issuance of timber cutting licences. The NGO is concerned that the problems related to local community rights are likely to worsen rather than improve as the government’s “green development” plan aggressively expands plantations of pulp trees for paper and oil palm for biofuel.

A recent study has revealed how recovering forests manipulate the process of nitrogen fixation to ‘heal’ themselves. Forests recovering from agricultural land use demonstrated exceptionally high rates of biomass accumulation, indicating very high rates of nitrogen demand. The results from the study indicate that nitrogen-fixing trees should be used preferentially in reforestation projects.

A Brazilian company which designs technology to track and trace expensive goods has created a device which can be placed inside felled trees found in protected areas. When the felled trees are then transported to sawmills by illegal loggers, location updates are sent to a central server. Law enforcement agencies closed one sawmill and made several arrests during a pilot last year of 20 of the devices and the company hopes this will convince the government to roll out the technology.

Greenpeace is cautious in response to the announcement by the President of Indonesia that the ban on deforestation in the country will be extended by two years. It claims that almost half of Indonesia’s primary forests and peatlands will have no protection from illegal logging even with the ban in place. The ban is only on the granting of new concessions and does not affect the rights of those who already have concessions to clear trees on that land. Greenpeace is also concerned about the low levels of enforcement by the Indonesian authorities against companies involved in illegal logging.

A documentary to be broadcast in Sweden tonight will allege that for the past two years agents working for forestry companies SCA and Holmen have been recruiting migrant workers from Cameroon to plant trees. According to the investigation workers are paid wages far below those promised by the agents and have to pay hefty sign-on fees. After the planting season many of the workers remain in Sweden as undocumented immigrants.

The Russian government has committed up to $12.4 billion over the next eight years to be spent on forestry protection. This will include restoration and improvement of species composition in forests, reducing illegal logging and addressing the black market in timber, improving aerial monitoring, cultivating trees for restoration and creating fire ponds to protect against wildfires. In response to the announcement of the policy, the CEO of the forestry company RusForest called for privatisation of the country’s forest, saying that this would incentivise longer term investment in the management of Russia’s forests. The current model is for companies such as RusForest to manage areas of forest on relatively short-term leases from the government. Russia currently imports more paper than it produces despite having around 700 million hectares of forest.

Press release by WRI for their new Forest Legality Risk Information Tool. The risk tool provides details about where forest products come from and what issues a buyer might encounter. The tool allows searching by country or species to find specific information. Future additions to the tool will provide interactive supply chain profiling tools, such as decision trees.