The European Union will finally ban the import of products from deforested land after December 2020. Companies must prove the traceability of their products in order to be able to import them into Europe.
Finally, products from deforestation will be banned in Europe. The European Parliament and the member states of the European Union agreed on Monday night to ban the import of several products such as cocoa, coffee or soya into the old continent if they contribute to deforestation.
Palm oil, wood, beef and rubber are also affected, as are several related materials (leather, chocolate, furniture, printed paper, charcoal, etc.), Parliament said in a statement. Taking into account the damage done not only to primary forests but to all forests, their import will be banned if these products come from land deforested after December 2020.
Traceability and geolocation
Importing companies are responsible for their supply chain and must demonstrate their traceability using crop geolocation data, which can be linked to satellite photos. “This is a world first! It’s the coffee for breakfast, the chocolate we eat, the charcoal in our grills, the paper in our books. It’s radical,” welcomed Pascal Canfin (Renew, Liberals), Chair of the Environment Committee in the European Parliament.
According to the WWF association, the EU, which causes 16% of global deforestation through its imports, is the second largest destroyer of tropical forests after China. The text had been proposed by the European Commission in November 2021 and broadly endorsed by member states, but MEPs had voted in September to significantly strengthen it by expanding the range of products concerned – notably rubber, which is not the original included is suggestion.
For Greenpeace, this is “great progress for forests […] This law will prevent certain companies from benefiting from deforestation,” explains Eric Moranval, forest campaign leader within the NGO. “But let’s not be naïve: this ordinance offers only mediocre protections to tribal peoples who pay their blood to defend nature and contains loopholes that benefit certain forest industries. We will remain particularly vigilant in the coming years: the EU needs to broaden its scope to include the financial sector and to protect nature as a whole, not just forests.”
While the association welcomes an “encouraging” rule, it warns that “other forested areas” such as that of the Cerrado in Brazil are not covered by the text. “As a reminder, this ecosystem, a biodiversity treasure and the size of half the EU, is being largely destroyed by agro-industry to grow imported soy in Europe.” threatened forested ecosystems such as the Cerrado Savannah (Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia), the agreement reached between the negotiators of Parliament and the States after long negotiations finally stipulates that this extension must be evaluated no later than one year after the entry into force of the text .
Indigenous peoples, forests’ best allies
Similarly, after two years, the Commission must explore a possible extension of the scope to other products (such as corn, which MEPs wanted to target immediately), to other ecosystems rich in storage carbon and biodiversity, such as peat bogs, also to the Financial sector – another strong demand from MEPs.
“We’ve already arrived at a much more robust definition of what forest destruction is to cover large areas […] and guarantees to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, our best allies against deforestation,” notes Christophe Hansen (EPP, right), Parliament negotiator. Therefore, importers must “verify compliance with the production country’s human rights legislation and ensure that the rights of the indigenous peoples concerned have been respected.”
For its part, France also welcomed the “innovative text” and called for “implementation as soon as possible” by starting a dialogue with producer and consumer countries around the world. “We worked towards this and France showed us how: the European Union bans the import of products resulting from deforestation. We are the first in the world! The fight for the climate and biodiversity is accelerating,” Emmanuel Macron tweeted.
France had made the fight against deforestation one of its priorities during its EU presidency. At the end of June, a few days before the end of her six-month term in office, she had obtained an agreement from the 27 member states at the EU Council of Environment Ministers, the import of six products (soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa, coffee) if they contribute to deforestation, but without rubber or other threatened ecosystems.
For his part, the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, speaks of a “pioneering and ambitious” text. “We will continue our efforts to maintain overall momentum until we see a decrease in deforestation locally,” he said. In particular, France must organize a One Forest Summit with Gabon in Libreville in March 2023.
To update : at 11:45 am, with the response of Greenpeace and France.