forests

The challenges of monitoring the effects of deforestation on the Amazon are immense. The vast areas which need to be covered means it's difficult to keep tabs on what's happening on the remote fringes of the rainforest and news of illegal logging and other environmental damage can take a long time to reach the authorities, if they find out at all.

To help solve this problem, the Greenpeace team in Brazil has been training local people to map the impacts of the soya industry in the Santarém region of the forest, the heart of soya production in the Amazon. It's a collaborative project with Brazilian organisations Projeto Saude e Alegria (Health and Happiness Project) and the Rural Workers Unions of Santarém and nearby Belterra, training people to use GPS technology to pinpoint the damage caused by intensive agriculture, empowering them to help defend their land and the rainforest.

Remember the palm oil tanker which the Esperanza prevented from docking in Indonesia last month? That same tanker - the Isola Corallo - arrived in European waters on Christmas Eve en route to Rotterdam, and was met by a group of Greenpeace activists who painted 'Forest Crime' along its hull.

I was on board the Esperanza during that first Indonesian action against the Corallo and it's brilliant to see this tanker - which is carrying 29,000 tonnes of palm oil belonging to Sinar Mas, Indonesia's largest producer - becoming the centre of attention once more here in Europe. It draws a thick line across the globe between the causes of deforestation in Indonesia and demand for products like palm oil on this side of the world.

Read the full story on the Greenpeace South East Asia website and find out more about the Indonesian end of the story in our latest podcast.

Fire burns through forest in Sumatra, clearing the area for plantations © Greenpeace/Novis

It's been a few weeks since the Esperanza's tour of Indonesia wrapped up with an exhausting but thrilling week of direct action focused on various palm oil tankers, and I've since left those humid equatorial climes to return to a chilly British winter. But even though the ship has moved on to other countries and campaigns, the palm oil campaign continues and in the past few weeks there have been some developments.

The most obvious has been annual meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Bali - this could have been the moment the industry got its act together and did something other than spin the usual load of greenwash over its involvement in the destruction of south east Asia's rainforests. Sadly, it was not to be. Although our ship painting/blockading actions drew a lot of attention, as did our earlier revelations about United Plantations and their 'sustainable' palm oil, no real progress was made.

High-tech smuggling operations may not be what you'd normally associate with the ongoing clearance of the Amazon rainforest, but logging companies intent on plundering it for timber have been using hackers to break into the Brazilian government's sophisticated tracking system and fiddle the records.

To monitor the amount of timber leaving the Amazon state of Pará, the Brazilian environment ministry did away with paper dockets and two years ago introduced an online system. Companies logging the rainforest for timber or charcoal production are only allowed to fell a certain amount of timber every year and this is controlled by the use of transport permits issued by the state government's computer system.

Flying over forest fires in the Amazon © Greenpeace/Beltra

With the current climate talks now underway in Poznan, the Brazilian government has finally fulfilled a promise it made at the previous round of talks in Bali last year and set targets for reducing deforestation in the Amazon. It's great to see they finally have some targets to work towards (and it's been a long time coming) but as is often the way with these political initiatives, it all falls short of what's really needed.

"While the environmental threats facing Africans are urgent and critical, Africa is in a position to leapfrog dirty development and become a leader in helping to avert catastrophic climate change and protect the natural environment. We are here to help make that happen."

Greenpeace Africa is here! Marking a whole new era for Greenpeace, we opened our first African office yesterday, in Johannesburg. In the coming weeks, we'll be opening two more - one in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the other in Senegal.

A dance troupe from Manokwari take a tour of the Esperanza's bridge in October 2008 © Greenpeace/Rante

Jamie wrote this - his thoughts and reflections on the ship tour so far - as he was waiting for something to happen in Indonesia last night. Eventually, something did.

Direct actions can be quite boring at times. The few moments of excitement are the ones which make the headlines and the photos, but anyone who has participated themselves will know there can be long, drawn-out stretches when not much is happening. Direct inaction, if you will.

I'm currently experiencing that now. As I write this, nestled in the campaign office on board the Esperanza, we're playing a waiting game. You've probably read about what the crew here has been up to in the Indonesian port of Dumai, painting and blockading palm oil tankers.

After painting and obstructing various palm oil tankers in Dumai earlier this week, we of the Esperanza have been playing a waiting game. There was one tanker due in which the campaigners were particularly interested in - not only was it bound for Europe, but it was picking up a cargo of palm oil from Sinar Mas, the largest palm oil company in Indonesia. As soon as it arrived, a climber was installed on the anchor chain and then there was some more waiting. A lot more waiting.