The vote follows several years of wrangling over how stringent the legislation should be. Green campaigners say they are pleased that the issue is to be addressed at last. Incredibly, around 20% of timber coming into the EU is thought to be illegal.

The illegal timber trade plays a significant part in the deforestation of some tropical countries. It also helped sustain the recent Liberian civil conflict as armed factions used the revenue for arms.

Finland’s Green MEP Satu Hassi, who has led moves within the parliament commented “At last the link between the European market and the forests around the world ravaged by illegal logging has been weakened. For too long the EU has preached against such logging and the resulting massive deforestation while simultaneously providing one of the largest markets for illegal timber.”

“As such, this agreement on the illegally sourced timber represents a major international breakthrough.”

The new law will force companies operating in the EU to produce “chain of supply” documentation so that, in principle, each piece of timber can be traced right back to its source.

Oscar winning actress Marion Cotillard has been highlighting the illegal timber issue whilst companies that operate “responsible timber” policies have welcomed the move.

“It is good news that Europe has finally agreed to crack down on illegal timber, creating a level playing field for responsible retailers,” said Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher plc, the parent company of European DIY giants such as B&Q and Screwfix.

“This new regulation will mean that consumers can have even greater confidence that the wood products they buy are not contributing to deforestation and climate change.”

Campaign groups working on environmental and human rights issues were also pleased by the move.

“This law hangs up a ‘closed for business’ sign to a destructive market,” said Greenpeace EU forest policy director Sebastien Risso. “It promises to level the playing field so legitimate companies and customers are better able to act sustainably.”

However, they were disappointed that EU member states fought for and obtained exemptions for five years on printed materials. To a large extent, the new law replicates measures contained in the amendment to the Lacey Act passed in the US in 2008.

This new law is at least a step in the right direction and hopefully will help reduce the illegal logging of timber around the world. All the other remaining world leaders must now also make this law, effectively ending what has devastated many areas of the planet. Of course we must remember that this not only is a major cause of global warming but also kills thousands of animals in the process.

The world’s net rate of forest loss has slowed in the last decade, with less logging in the Amazon Jungle and China becoming eco-conscious and planting more trees.

Yet forests continue to be lost at “an alarming rate” in some countries, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 finds the loss of tree cover is most acute in Africa and South America. But Australia also suffered huge losses because of the recent drought.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to say that the deforestation rate is going down across the world, and certainly when you look at the net rate that is certainly down.

“But the situation in some countries is still alarming,”

The last decade saw forests being lost or converted at a rate of 13 million hectares per year, compared to 16 million hectares in the 1990s.

However, new forests were being planted to the tune of more than seven million hectares per year; so the net rate of loss since the year 2000 has been 5.2 million hectares per year, compared to 8.3 million in the 1990s.

Globally, forests now cover about 31% of the Earth’s land surface.

The biggest losses of forest occurred in Brazil, Indonesia and Australia. Australia’s reduction of half a million hectares per year is principally down to the drought conditions that have covered most of the country in recent years, thought to be a consequence of global climate change.

The Indonesian and Brazilian figures were not such a surprise, with both countries possessing vast tracts of forest and major logging industries. Both Brazil and Indonesia are reporting a significant drop in the loss of forests. In Brazil it’s spectacular, and that’s largely because there is a political goal to reduce deforestation by 80% by 2020 and that’s supported by the president.

As deforestation has fallen, there has also been an increase in the planting of new forests, particularly in China, leading to a net increase in national forest cover of three million hectares per year. Worryingly though, the programme – aimed at preventing desertification, reducing flooding and protecting farmland – is due to end in 2020, and if it does, the FAO points out, that will rapidly lead to an increase in the net loss of forest figure. India and Vietnam have also mounted significant forest-planting programmes, the FAO notes.

UN agencies hope the net rate of loss will be slowed further in coming years if the climate change-related initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) comes to fruition.

The FAO is conducting another survey using satellite observations that they hope will provide a much more detailed assessment, and should be published at the end of next year.

Hopefully with technology becoming so mainstream the need for paper will become less and less as the years go by. Think of only a few years ago when you used to write letters, send invoices etc on paper. These days we use email and pdfs which in theory should greatly reduce our need for paper. Maybe the Apple iPad will revolutionise magazines too in the way it did for cd albums. Time will tell.

The challenge of saving the orangutan – man’s closest relative – from extinction is trickling down to the weekly shop. Many of the biscuits, margarines, breads, crisps and even bars of soap that consumers pick off supermarket shelves contain an ingredient that is feeding a growth industry that conservationists say is killing the orangutans.

The mystery ingredient in the mix is palm oil – the cheapest source of vegetable oil available – and one that rarely appears on the label of most products. Palm oil is grown on land that was once home to the vast rainforests of Borneo, and the natural habitat of the orangutan.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the population has declined by 50% in recent decades and the Indonesian government admits that 50,000 orangutans have died as a result of de-forestation.

A BBC Panorama investigation into clear-cutting in Indonesian Borneo – the island it shares with Malaysia – found that the thirst for land on which to plant palm plantations is encroaching on areas that the Indonesian government has deemed to be off-limits.

The orangutans, displaced as the trees of old-growth forests are burned and at times killed by workers who see them as a nuisance in the logging process, are not the only victims of the runaway growth in palm oil – scientists say there is a wider environmental price being paid.

Greenpeace has identified the draining of ancient peat lands to make way for palm oil as a global threat, saying it had lead to massive amounts of trapped methane and carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. As a result, Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only America and China.

ORANGUTAN FACTS

• Orangutan means “old man of the forest” in Malay
• Only apes living outside of Africa
• Largest tree-dwelling mammals

Using GPS technology and satellite imaging, the BBC team pinpointed exact locations where palm oil giant the Duta Palma Group is logging on both high conservation lands and deep peat lands – both are illegal.Shailendra Yashwant, Greenpeace director for Southeast Asia, said this illegal logging is widespread and includes major suppliers to the UK’s food and household product market.

“We want the Indonesian government to immediately announce a moratorium on further deforestation…beginning with peat lands.”

Willie Smits, a former advisor to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry turned environmental campaigner, said of the findings: “This is criminal, this should not take place. It means there is no hope left for the most endangered sub-species of the orang-utan in west Kalamantan.”

He said the wider environmental issue of greenhouse gases can no longer be overlooked by both manufacturers and everyday consumers.

“This is not just a matter for Indonesia to decide, this is a matter for the world.”

Currently, only 3% of the world’s palm oil is certified sustainable, meaning it comes from plantations that pass an environmental and social impact test. Many have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) scheme set up to promote certification of where palm oil originates.

Bulk oil from a variety of plantations – including that of Duta Palma Group that the BBC found to be illegally clear-cutting – is mixed together and shipped around the world and sold on to manufacturers behind everyday products. Duta Palma declined to comment on the BBC’s evidence of illegal deforestation.

Many of the sweets and staples in our shopping trolleys contain palm oil. Current labelling laws allow manufacturers to list palm oil as ‘vegetable’ oil, without singling out the palm oil content. However, Sainsbury’s supermarkets had earlier taken the decision to not only single out palm oil on the ingredients lists of their own-brand products, but to state directly that it is from a sustainable source.

Recently Unilever, the UK’s largest user of palm oil in products that range from Dove soap to Pot Noodles, Knorr soups and Flora, terminated a large contract with a supplier called Sinar Mas, because of reports it was destroying high conservation value forests.

We need to make people aware of issues like this that affect others we may not realise, whether they are human or orangutans. If the public are not aware the products they buy are destroying natural habitats then they won’t do anything about it. Help spread this message so we can make a change.

The halting of logging in the world’s rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said.

But they are being felled for timber products, food and now bio fuels. Experts say this carbon is being released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, suggested that the destruction adds about 18% to the CO2 from human sources.

In an interview to mark BBC World Service’s Amazon Day, Prince Charles said: “When you think the rainforests release 20 billion tonnes of water vapour into the air every day, and also absorb carbon on a gigantic scale, they are incredibly valuable, and they provide the rainfall we all depend on.”
He said a way had to be found to ensure people living in the rainforest were adequately rewarded for the “eco-system services that their forest provides the rest of the world”.

He said: “The trouble is the rainforests are home to something like 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the world. In order to survive there has to be an effort to produce things which tends to be at the expense of the rainforest.”

“What we’ve got to do is try to ensure that those forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment there’s more value in them being dead. This is the crazy thing.”

The prince called on governments, big business and consumers to demand an end to logging in the rainforest. He said the time was right to persuade business to play its part because there was increasing concern about global warming.

“Halting deforestation would be the easiest and cheapest way in helping in the battle against climate change. Waiting for all the new technologies to come on stream is not going to be soon enough.”
Charles said if deforestation did not slow down soon there would be “far more drought and starvation on a grand scale. We’re asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now, and urgency of those issues. It is the easiest way to create a win on the climate change front while all sorts of other things come along later.”

The BBC’s environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, says that Prince Charles’ observation that saving the forests is the cheapest and most effective way of cutting CO2 emissions is “widely acknowledged”.
At the recent Bali climate conference, developing countries asked for compensation from rich nations if they agreed to avoid future deforestation.

Talks are continuing, but there are issues over sovereignty – and genuine difficulties over who pays, who collects, and how much money should be offered. Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said: “The Prince is absolutely right to highlight deforestation as the single greatest cause of climate change, but putting a stop to it is much more complex.”

Of course rainforest destruction not only helps to increase global warming but also is devastating to the animal kingdom. Many animals such as Orangutans, Tigers and Monkeys are in danger of becoming extinct due to their habitat being reduced in size.