amazon

After losing respected environment minister Marina Silva from his cabinet last week, President Lula of Brazil has filled the gaping hole left by her departure. But whether the new minister Carlos Minc has the same commitment to protecting the Amazon as his predecessor, we'll just have to wait and see.

Yesterday, the 'guardian angel' of Brazil's environment, Marina Silva, threw in the towel and quit her post as Brazil's environment minister. She told President Lula that her efforts to protect the Amazon "were being thwarted by powerful business lobbies".

Following our action in France last month - when the crew of the Arctic Sunrise blocked a shipment of timber from the Brazilian Amazon - efforts have been stepped up in the country of origin to prevent illegal timber being exported in the first place.

The Brazilian government's environmental agency, Ibama, has seized a shipment of timber in the first check on exports by authorities in two years. The cargo vessel in question - the BSLE Express - would have been en route to Europe but has been detained in Santarem since March 27. So far, inspectors have confiscated 732m3 of wood which were travelling with false papers; papers that were economical with the truth when it came to the species of timber present in the shipment.

Boarding the Galina III yesterday © Greenpeace/Karl Joseph

Yesterday afternoon, the crew of one of our ships - the Arctic Sunrise - swung into action in the French port of Caen. Their mission: to prevent a shipment of Amazon timber, acquired from companies linked to illegal logging activities, from entering the EU. And after nearly 24 hours, they're still going strong.

The timber is aboard the Galina III and, as it tried to enter the port, five Greenpeace volunteers (including a group from the UK) climbed aboard where they attached themselves to two of the ship's cranes. Since then, the Galina has been unable to dock to unload its cargo, a mixture of timber species with wonderfully exotic names: amarelao, macaranduba, ipe, garapeira, cumaru and jarana to name a few. And as I write, the team on the cranes is still holding out.

One of the pleasures of working at Greenpeace is having access to a truly incredible photo library and there's been more than one occasion when, looking for images to accompany a blog story, I've become lost in the wealth of powerful and affecting images.

The photographers who supply us with these photos are rewarded for their work with the occasional trophy and Daniel Beltra, who has accompanied Greenpeace campaigners on expeditions all over the world, was last week presented with the Global Vision Award for photos he took in the Amazon as part of Pictures of the Year International. He also received an Award of Excellence in the Science/Nature category for a collection from the Antarctic, taken during last year's Southern Ocean expedition on the Esperanza.

An illegal logging camp in the Amazon © Greenpeace/Daniel Beltra

Stung by the recent rise in deforestation rates in the Amazon, the Brazilian government is cracking down on the illegal loggers who are ripping up the rainforest; their year-long initiative - known as Operation Fire Belt - is targeting areas where deforestation has been most acute.

Last year, we heard the excellent news that the rate of deforestation in the Amazon had dropped for the third consecutive year. However, yesterday came the rather less welcome news that those rates had changed and have moved in an upward direction.