Europe only wants deforestation-free products from the South

The European Commission will be much stricter with monitoring the import of “southern products” such as timber, coffee, cocoa and soy. Importers will have to certify that their cultivation did not contribute to deforestation.

Putting an end to deforestation

The new import rules are the most striking measure in a whole array of initiatives that Europe takes towards protecting the environment, climate and biodiversity.

Apart from China, the European Union is the world’s largest consumer of soy, beef, palm oil, timber, cocoa and coffee. The cultivation of all these products often involves the destruction of forests. Despite voluntary agreements and the introduction of all kinds of quality labels, 178 million hectares of forest have disappeared in net terms over the past 30 years, the FAO (Food and agriculture organisation) of the United Nations has calculated. That is about the same as the total surface area of France.

Traceability

The new regulation states that importers of the above products, but also secondary products, such as leather, chocolate and furniture, will have to provide evidence that the products do not contribute to deforestation and therefore come from already existing agricultural land. In other words, the raw materials should be traceable to make it clear where they came from. It will be up to the companies to carry out due diligence on their supply chain, while the member states will be responsible for carrying out inspections.

According to WWF, a country such as Belgium is responsible for global deforestation to a considerable extent. “The area required for producing soy, cocoa, beef and leather, palm oil, coffee, rubber, timber and paper that Belgium imports in raw or processed form, amounts to more than 10 million hectares annually. That is more than three times the size of our country”, the environmental organisation told Belgian newspaper De Tijd.