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Candy and food giant Nestle is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. The online campaign against Nestle continues: today protesters once again posted thousands of negative messages on the company's Facebook page, most demanding that Nestle cut out palm oil linked to deforestation from its products. At the same time, a new problem has cropped up for Nestle: Indonesian oil palm planters are threatening to boycott Nestle products. Proving that the issues surrounding oil palm and deforestation are nothing if not complex: Facebook protestors say they will boycott Nestle if it doesn't cut out all links to Sinar Mas, a company that Greenpeace has linked to deforestation, whereas the Indonesia Palm Oil Growers Association are preparing a boycott if Nestle stops buying from Sinar Mas, according to the Jakarta Post.

"If deforestation were happening in your city, how quickly would you work to stop it?" the video asks, pointing out that 90 acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute. Deforestation threatens half of the world's species, and is responsible for 20% of global warming emissions."

"Rich nations must contribute more to a climate change fund and help fight deforestation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a conference Thursday on saving the world's forests - a key defense against global warming."

British supermarkets are driving a new wave of rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest by using meat from farms responsible for illegal deforestation, according to a three-year investigation by Greenpeace

ow-input farming for cocoa, cassava and oil palm has resulted in widespread deforestation and degredation of West Africa's tropical forest area, according to a new study by researchers at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). The study was published online this week in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Management.

"Satellite flyovers of newly cleared land in the Amazon have uncovered a vanished civilization that could rival the Incans or Aztecs in sophistication. Researchers found mysterious geometric trenches and other earthworks carved into the landscape as early as a decade ago, but satellites have paved the way for the discovery of over 200 giant structures."

"Brandt's bat, a species not identified by science until 1970 and not seen in Ireland since 2003, has been declared probably extinct."

"Yesterday, Brazilian politicians took a decisive step towards opening the door to massive new Amazon deforestation, by voting in favor of radical changes to the Brazilian Forest Code - the primary legal instrument for protecting the Amazon.  If these changes become law they will let hundreds of forest criminals off the hook, and massively expand the amount of forest under threat from the chainsaws"

"Google.org demonstrated a new platform on Thursday that, if implemented in conjunction with a proposed United Nations program, could provide a significant tool to combat climate change. Its new "high-performance satellite imagery-processing engine" can process terabytes of information on thousands of Google servers while giving access to the results online. The platform, which was demonstrated on Thursday at the International Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, would allow anyone using the tool to monitor whether or not trees were being chopped down in a given forest. It analyzes satellite images to show forest changes over a given time period."

"Mangroves are so efficient at keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that when they are destroyed, they release as much as 10 percent of all emissions worldwide attributable to deforestation -- even though mangroves account for just 0.7 percent of the tropical forest area, researchers said."

"However, with increasing development pressure, market-based incentives are needed to ensure that private forests remain as forests." WRI officials hope the new online resource will illustrate the history of these forests, and help landowners better understand how numerous forces are affecting the region.

"Degraded peatlands contribute to almost 50% of Indonesia's GHG emissions; yet development in peatlands probably contribute less than 1 % to the national economy (GDP)."

"he Kasigau Corridor REDD Project aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.5 million tons over its 20-year lifetime, generating carbon credits that may receive a premium relative to other credits due to the CCB certification."

"Negotiators at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen didn't see eye to eye on much last month, but almost everyone agreed on one thing: To protect the planet we need to save its forests."

A lot depends on how 'peat' and 'natural forest' are defined and how rights are agreed upon. Strong lobbies from the forest and tree-crop plantation industry argue that the economy will be harmed if 'business as usual' is interrupted. According to news sources, definitions of 'natural forest' and 'peat' differ between drafts prepared by the Indonesian Government's emissions reduction taskforce and by the Ministry of Forestry. There are several key issues that need to be resolved.

Central America has suffered the highest rate of forest loss in Latin America over the last 10 years, despite a growing number of plans aimed at curbing the decline, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports.

Sinar Mas Group, the notorious international palm oil pariah, recently made a remarkable announcement: The company's subsidiary, Golden Agri Resouces (GAR), intends to implement a forest conservation policy. Among other things, GAR's Forest Conservation Policy commits it to a goal of "no new development" on peat lands, High Conservation Value Forest areas or High Carbon Landscapes, respecting Indigenous and local communities, and achievement of RSPO certification for all its holdings by 2015.

"[Forests] reduce the effects of floods, prevent soil erosion, regulate the water table and assure a high-quality water supply for people, industry and agriculture," said the Forestry Department Assistant Director General, Eduardo Rojas-Briales, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle."