We knew the government's plans on biofuels were a bit of a mess, but figures released today by the Renewable Fuel Agency show just how bad the situation is.

First off, the agency reports that 80 per cent of biofuels used in the UK don't meet government sustainability targets. In fact several companies, including BP and Esso, admitted that they didn't produce a single litre of biofuel that met the government's qualifying environmental standard.

This week the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research published their latest figures on Amazon rainforest deforestation and the trees are falling as fast as the FTSE.

According to the institute, deforestation in August was three times higher than the same period last year. Using satellite imagery they have reported that 756 km2 were destroyed – that’s twice the rate of deforestation in July.

I've mentioned before about how I love wandering through the Greenpeace photo library (it's on a big server, so any wandering is purely figurative) - there's always just one more enticing folder to explore. And it's hardly surprising, when our campaign work takes photographers to some stunning locations and places them at the heart of the action. Some have even won major international awards for their work, both with Greenpeace and independently.

If you submitted your own Forest Love video in response to ours, you might catch a glimpse of yourself in the new video we've put together below which we're going to deliver to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso in Brussels. The commission are due to vote on legislation to ban illegal timber in Europe and hopefully that will take place in mid-October, but the date has changed several times over the past few weeks so who knows?

Following the recent fun with a timber cargo ship in Papua New Guinea, the Greenpeace team on the Esperanza has sent through some more material which throws the spotlight on what's happening in the country's forests. The video below explains how local communities are being short-changed by logging companies, with things like schools and medical centres promised by these companies simply not materialising:

If you haven't had your fill of news from the Amazon lately (we've recently had live webcasts and slideshows from regions where fires have swept through), Monday's edition of Panorama is dedicated to the largest rainforest on Earth, and Greenpeace will featured.

Called Can Money Grow On Trees?, it will examine how the rising cost of food is threatening the Amazon as more forest is converted into farmland for cattle ranching - the current dry season provides an excellent opportunity for a bit of fire-based forest clearance. Also included will be the question of whether financial mechanisms (like our own proposal) can be brought in to make forests more valuable if they're left standing.

We haven't seen the final programme, but it's on BBC1 at 8.30pm, with a repeat on Friday 12 September at 12.45am. Of course, you can watch it at anytime on the wondrous iPlayer after transmission (although only if you're in the UK).

Oil palm saplings waiting to be planted © Behring/Greenpeace

Last week, campaigners from Greenpeace South-East Asia met with palm oil producers and traders to discuss the challenges faced by the industry if it's going to get a grip on the problem of deforestation. The seminar was designed to get these companies thinking about the impact their trade is having on forests in the region, and working groups brought together industry reps and campaigners to discuss the issues involved, particularly our demand for a moratorium on clearing forest areas for palm oil plantations.

A Greenpeace team occupies the Harbour Gemini, carrying illegal timber from Papua New Guinea and bound for China
© Sutton-Hibbert/Greenpeace

As we wait for the European Commission to consider legislation to prevent illegal timber from entering Europe, a Greenpeace team in Papua New Guinea have stepped in to prevent a ship from loading up with wood of dubious provenance.

The ship, Harbour Gemini, was loading timber at Paia Inlet in Gulf Province, when four activists from our ship the Esperanza climbed a loading crane to hang a huge banner reading 'Protect Forests, Save Our Climate'. Looking on were groups of local people in boats, while others held their own peaceful protests at the port and nearby logging camps.

It's currently the dry season in the Amazon and, as the live webcast last week demonstrated, fires have been decimating large areas. The video crew weren't the only ones documenting the fires and last week we received images from another Greenpeace team who took to the air to photograph them and the devastated areas they leave behind. We've put together some of the most striking (not to say depressing) images into the slideshow below.

In a word, yes. A marine ecologist in New Zealand has won a top award by showing how deforestation has affected marine ecosystems such as cutting down of the once intact rainforest in the country's South Island. As this latest research shows, not only do forests regulate the climate but also provide for plant and animal species in the water as well as on land.