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.

Peruvian environmental prosecutor, Francisco Berrospi, comments on the corruption he has experienced first-hand across the timber trade in the Peruvian Amazon. A slideshow also accompanies this story: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/10/19/world/americas/20131019Peru.html?ref=americas

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.