US politicians claim that the EU's prohibition on products connected to deforestation sets the bar.

 

Campaigners applaud the EU's action, and a lawmaker claims that it gives comparable US initiatives new life.

Thu jan 05 2023 13.00 GMT

According to US senators, a landmark EU agreement to ban the purchase of items connected to deforestation has set a worldwide standard and will speed the enactment of a US measure with a similar goal.

Every second, somewhere in the world, a forest area the size of a football field is lost to agricultural development. After a cutoff date of 31 December 2020, the EU will start demanding that companies operating in deforestation hotspots verify that their products have not impacted forests.

According to the EU, this will effectively ban the import of certain goods, including cattle, soy, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, rubber, charcoal, and paper, unless their origins can be verified using geolocation data.

Virginijus Sinkeviius, the EU's environment commissioner, called the accord "the most ambitious legislative endeavour to confront these concerns worldwide ever."

A review clause in the law may allow it to be expanded starting in 2025 to "other wooded land" like Brazil's Cerrado, which is thought to be the cause of 65% of the EU's soy-related deforestation. It may also be expanded to include other agricultural products like maize and biodiesel. Other habitats with high biodiversity value or high carbon concentration may be included by the law starting in 2026.

The study is also anticipated to apply the rule to European international financial institutions, which, according to Global Witness, made agreements totaling $34.7 billion with 20 corporations suspected of deforestation between 2016 and 2020.

The campaign organisation Mighty Earth's CEO, Glenn Hurowitz, called the measure "historic and monumental" despite certain shortcomings. He stated: "We predict that approximately 75% of the world's imported deforestation might be stopped within a few years if China, India, the US, and Japan adopted the EU's lead and duplicated these crucial legislative actions."

There have been worries that the US Forest Act, which is co-sponsored by seasoned senators like Elizabeth Warren and has goals comparable to those of the EU rule, may be stopped now that Republicans have taken control of Congress following the midterm elections in November.

The draught law's creator, Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer, claimed that the EU's approval had given the safety measure fresh momentum.

He said, "I'm extremely excited." "The momentum that is being developed is crucial. Our relationship with the EU is crucial. Our disagreements are quite small, so there is a chance for us to band together and support more private sector leadership that, in my opinion, need not be subject to partisan crossfire.

The US trade envoy, Katherine Tai, and the Biden White House, according to Blumenauer, both endorsed his strategy. Since nobody favours illegal logging, it avoids certain partisan issues, he claimed. "This is something I plan on starting early in the new Congress," the speaker said. "We're in the process of popularising the idea, and the recent development with the EU helps accelerate that."

On Tuesday, the legislature met once more. Brian Schatz, the bill's sponsor in the Senate, declared: "The United States ought to follow suit as the EU is closing its borders to products of deforestation. If we don't take action, goods that can no longer enter Europe will be dumped on the US market.

The Forest Act is criticised for being far weaker than EU law. Greenpeace contends that the policy exclusively addresses "illegal" deforestation, although 30% to 50% of tropical deforestation is ostensibly legal, lacks potential levers for other woodland environments, and has more restricted enforcement capabilities than the EU regulation.

Sini Eräjäa, Greenpeace's European food, forest, and wildlife officer, said: "Whether or not the local government thinks it legitimate, forest destruction everywhere in the world is a tragedy for nature and the climate. The new EU regulation prohibits any forms of deforestation from supplying the EU market, which represents a significant victory for forests. Even if lobbyists for the European logging industry cut out some significant loopholes, it's also the first law to establish regulations against forest products created through irresponsible harvesting of natural forests.

In response to lobbying from Canada and some EU governments, the EU's definition of "forest degradation" was loosened. These governments also opposed the inclusion of protections for Indigenous peoples' human rights that the European Parliament had requested.

According to Tina Schneider, deputy director of the World Resource Institute in the US, the inclusion of legal deforestation by the EU is not particularly noteworthy.

To prevent leakage as much as feasible, she stated, "I think it's far more vital to have as many markets as possible to approve substantially comparable laws." "I would approach the debate over whether there should be zero or no restrictions on illegal deforestation more from the standpoint of whether it would be possible to enact rules in important consumer nations. If so, is there political will to enact either zero legal deforestation or zero deforestation at all?

While it was doubtful that anybody would be jailed as a result of the US plan, Blumenauer said it was "an essential first step" in a gradual process.

A public consultation on "tackling illicit deforestation" in the UK ended in March of last year, with the majority of the roughly 17,000 responses urging the government to move quickly. The Environment Act has not yet been amended to include supplementary laws.

According to a representative for the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, "we are taking more steps than ever to safeguard forests and crack down on unlawful deforestation under the Environment Act, now legislation. We have already passed due diligence legislation that is among the best in the world, and it helps stop unlawful deforestation in UK supply chains. In due course, further details on our approach to secondary legislation will be released.