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.

After this summer I would be willing to empty my account for some sunshine, but rainforest are rarely seen has having value beyond the commodities they produce. Last night Panorama looked at the important issue of the value of our rainforests to the planet. Known as ecosystem services, forests "influence weather systems on a vast scale, produce rainfall and capture CO2 from the atmosphere, reducing global warming".

Photographer Pierre Gleizes managed to get back to the Rainbow Warrior after his arrest and put together this set of pictures capturing the high tension moment of the activists arrests after painting a cargo ship carrying coal to the Ashkelon power plant in Israel. Great to have the master back on board and still going strong after over 25 years of making superb images for Greenpeace.

Israeli police boarded the Rainbow Warrior today to arrest captain Daniel Rizzotti after the peaceful action of activists from the ship who painted "Quit Coal" on the hull of a ship unloading coal at the Ashkelon power plant.

No one will be surprised that Greenpeace is against the construction of new nuclear power stations, but what some may find unusual is one of the solutions we are proposing to meet our energy needs and reduce our CO2 emissions - industrial CHP, or combined heat and power.

The editor of sidewalk got in touch with us on Saturday to confirm the winners of our competition to win three pairs of Glastonbury tickets.

Just to recap, we asked skaters (or fakers) to submit clips of themselves on a video site in order to enter for three categories: best trick, best line (or group of tricks put together if you aren’t a skater) and judges discretion.

A few months back when Niall and Jason from Tellyjuice contacted us, they said they liked our videos on YouTube but thought we could be "well, um… funnier". I had to admit that we often forget to see the funny side of things surrounded by all this doom and gloom (did you hear about the bees on the Today programme this morning?!).

Our resident tame orang-utan demonstrates his skateboarding technique... 

If you're an up and coming skater (or a good faker) here’s your chance to win tickets to Glastonbury Festival.

Our skateboard park is a highlight of our field at Glastonbury and this year we’ve already confirmed performances by pro skaters including riders from eS, Vans, Santa Cruz and Death and this is your chance to be among them at this year’s festival.

You may have noticed that we had quick win in our campaign to stop deforestation from palm oil a couple of weeks back. Unilever made an announcement that they would support a moratorium to protect Indonesia's rainforest from destruction just ten days after the launch of our campaign.

We made it, version two. Ok so it's not exactly fortnightly (it's not at all fortnightly), so we're going for the classic monthly format. In this episode I head down to Google's headquarters in London to hear Sir David Attenborough speaking about the access to information we have about the natural world through programs like Google Earth and the responsibility that comes with that knowledge. Bex talks to Fish (if you speak Mandarin that's peng yo gan tongshi) from Our office in Bejing about their chopsticks campaign, and Jamie speaks with our chief scientist about biofuels and the threat they pose to the climate. The podcast is presented by our very own James Turner (who lies, I have never been nor will be a fan of Jason Donovan).

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Want to find out more about the issues in this podcast?

Greenpeace, Google Earth and global awareness »
Reclaiming paradise chopstick sales »
Greenpeace China »
Problems at the pump as new biofuel law draws closer »
Biofuels: green dream or climate change nightmare? » Read more »