The NGO Anti Forest Mafia Coalition released a report on the Indonesian Timber Legality Assurance System (SVLK) to scrutinize whether it and the actual Timber Legality (LK), Sustainable Production Forest Management (PHPL) and V-Legal certificates can guarantee the legality and sustainability of Indonesian timber products.

Activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) staged a protest today at a Staples store in El Cerrito, Ca to communicate their objection to the office supply giant’s recent decision to resume purchasing paper from Indonesia’s highly controversial company Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Staples was one of dozens of major customers to cut APP as a paper supplier due to its well documented involvement in rainforest destruction and human rights abuses in Indonesia.

The second week of month showed the most fire hotspots found in Riau province since fires and haze returned from January. There are total 1605 hotspots detected in Riau by Eyes on the Forest based on NASA Modis Fire monitoring in period of 13-19 February. By concessions, pulpwood plantation or officially called industrial timber plantation (HTI) 474 hotspots found which APRIL’s affiliated concessions had 245, while its competitor APP’s with 223 hotspots.

The Austrian company Andritz received the “Eyesore of the Year 2013” award for its involvement in three dam projects with tremendous negative ecological and human rights impacts: Xayaburi in Laos, Belo Monte in Brazil as well as Ilisu in Turkey. At the beginning of this week the company signed the contracts for yet another disastrous mega-project: a gigantic pulp mill in the middle of Sumatra's rainforests. This new project involvement underlines the reasons for Andritz receiving this award, as it continuously takes part in some of the worst projects in the world.

A civil code trial on alleged pollution and environmental damage that involved one supplier of Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) belonging to tycoon Sukanto Tanoto’s Royal Golden Eagle group took place at the Pekanbaru Court in January, media reported. The prosecutors sued PT Merbau Pelalawan Lestari, the APRIL’s supplier, with  two logging losses which inflicted to the State deficit of Rp 16 trillion during 2004, 2005, and 2006 in Pelalawan district, mongabay.co.id and rct.or.id reported recently.