Environment and Forests Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Sunday said Bangladesh has taken a major move to take the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agenda ahead. Bangladesh joined the UN-REDD programme in August 2011.

The Walt Disney Company has bought $3.5 million in carbon credits to prevent the destruction of a jungle in the country's Amazon. The Alto Mayo forest -- home to 1,500 settlers -- spans 180,000 hectares in Peru's northeast department of San Martin and contains 23 species of endangered flora and fauna. "The objective Disney shares is to slow down the pace of deforestation in the protected natural area, which has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the country," said Luis Espinel, director of the NGO Conservation International that manages the forest.

The European Union is cracking down on the timber trade in an effort to curb illegal logging, blamed for a host of ills from social upheaval to environmental and economic damage. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said Friday that new rules effective from Sunday would affect everyone in the trade by barring illegally harvested timber from its huge internal market of some 500 million people.

The world's third-largest paper producer Asia Pulp and Paper said Tuesday it had stopped using logs from Indonesia's natural forests, after fierce campaigning by green groups against the company. The firm has in recent years lost packaging contracts with big brands such as foodmaker Kraft and Barbie's Mattel, after Greenpeace accused APP of clearing carbon-rich forest, home to endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans.