- One third of global deforestation is linked to international trade, and the European Union plus the UK are estimated to account for 16% of global trade-related deforestation.
- A recent European Commission proposal would require companies to ensure that commodities placed on the European market are not linked to a territory that has been deforested after December 31, 2020.
- A senior scientist at CIRAD argues that as worded, the proposal could punish some countries unfairly while ignoring other useful certification schemes that protect forests.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The European Commission’s plan to counter deforestation associated with certain imported agricultural products was unveiled on November 17, 2021. One third of global deforestation is linked to international trade, and the European Union (plus the UK) is estimated to have an annual “footprint” of about 200,000 hectares, or 16% of global trade-related deforestation.
The Commission’s proposal provides that before placing a product on the European market, each company must ensure that it is not linked to a territory that has been deforested after December 31, 2020, by geolocating the parcels from which it comes and by setting up a traceability system. The products concerned are palm oil, soy, cocoa, coffee, beef and wood. Surprisingly, natural rubber from rubber trees is not included, even though it is one of the drivers of deforestation, although not the most important one.
The cornerstone of this project is the “due diligence” obligation imposed on importers, i.e. the set of verifications that they must carry out to ensure the origin of the product to be imported, its legality, and the conditions of its production, thus reducing the risk of marketing products involved in deforestation.
A broad “amnesty” for recent deforestation
One of the main elements of this draft regulation is the mention of a “cut-off date” on deforestation set at 12/31/2020. In practical terms, this means that if the conversion of forest has taken place before this date, these are not considered to be involved in deforestation. The date of the end of 2020 is more than a compromise, it is the upper bound of a range mentioned by the European Commission (“between 2015 and 2020”) a few months ago.
The European Parliament had voted in 2020 on a resolution stating that the date of January 1st, 2015 had to be retained. The date proposed by the Commission is clearly a gesture to the importing industry (and the producing countries) who were asking for the adoption of a close-to-present date. And it “amnesties” a lot of recent deforestation in large producing countries, such as Brazil, while low deforestation countries like Gabon that may want to develop their agriculture by clearing forest now will probably note that they are more penalized.
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The thorny issue of legal deforestation
The other important point is the adoption of the FAO’s definition of forests, i.e. 10% tree cover (without oil palms, for example) on a minimum area of 0.5 hectares. However, many countries have adopted a minimum threshold of 30% tree cover to define forests, i.e., a narrower definition of forest. By setting a threshold of 10% to define zero deforestation products, commodities considered legal in the country of origin (whose conversion may have involved an ecosystem with, for example, 20% cover) will be unacceptable to the EU, and, in principle, will not be allowed to be imported. This will create strong trade tensions and possible retaliatory measures (one can think of Airbus sales).
The idea of having only one definition of forest for all countries (i.e., the same for Gabon, a country of dense forests, and Burkina Faso, a country of dry and open forests) and all biomes, poses a problem of realism. It would be more appropriate to examine things on a case-by-case basis, and even biome by biome, since some countries have several forest biomes. To move in this direction, it would undoubtedly be better for the EU to rely on independent certifications such as the Rainforest Alliance for cocoa, or the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for oil palm, which have recently adopted “zero deforestation” criteria.
On the other hand, adopting a single threshold of 10% tree cover to define forest risks letting the conversion of many parts of wooded savannas, such as the Brazilian Cerrado, into soybean fields. Indeed, these savannas rich in biodiversity and with high amounts of carbon in their soils are often below the 10% tree cover threshold. The European Commission announces that it will probably consider extending its regulation to other natural ecosystems in a second phase. It should be noted, however, that adopting a general measure of “no conversion of natural ecosystems” (which would essentially aim to protect the Cerrado) would run counter to the guidelines proposed by the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), a coalition of donors of which the European Commission is a stakeholder, to ensure that large-scale cultivation (of oil palm in particular) is developed in savannas (and thus natural ecosystems such as the Cerrado).
While in Brazil there are huge areas of degraded and abandoned pastureland that could be rehabilitated for new crops or plantations, this is practically not the case in the Congo Basin. Taking the context into account will therefore be crucial to making relevant decisions and avoiding perverse effects. While it seems difficult for a bureaucratic machine such as the Commission to be able to take into account the context in a detailed manner, it is reasonable to think that independent certifications that meet the precise specifications of the public authority will do so.
Tropical wood imports threatened
For tropical timber, a rather unexpected threat appears with the mention of forest “degradation” in addition to deforestation. This consideration of degradation seems to be the result of listening to lobbies against logging. The definition of degradation is rather unclear: the European draft states that degradation means logging operations “that are not sustainable,” while the next paragraph states that sustainable logging means no degradation (of primary forests). This sounds like a circular reference.
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Avoiding degradation implies, by some definitions, maintaining the original species composition, age structure or distribution rate of a forest stand. All of which are changed by selective logging, even if controlled and certified (not to mention the CO2 emissions from roads, harvesting and logging damage). The Commission’s draft specifies that forestry operations must not result in “loss of biological or economic productivity” or damage “the complexity of ecosystems.” These criteria will be difficult to interpret and few operations will be able to claim to meet them fully.
This is a sword of Damocles hanging over tropical woods, since they are the ones explicitly concerned by this mention of degradation in the draft regulation. The Commission does not question the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) of 2013, which aims to sanction importers who would put illegally logged timber on the European market. This suggests that there will not be a short-term halt to tropical timber imports, but NGOs may raise the issue at any time and ask the EU to be consistent with its non-degradation criteria. It is likely that imports of timber from forests considered “primary” (little disturbed by human activities) will quickly be questioned, which will pose a problem for many foresters in Gabon, Congo and Cameroon, even those certified by demanding labels such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Finally, a benchmarking (comparative analysis) of countries will be carried out to proportion the level of due diligence according to the country risk. The criteria for comparison should be deforestation rates, production trends for commodities at risk of deforestation, national policies, quality of governance, etc. While this approach makes sense, it may discourage importers against sourcing from countries such as Cameroon, Cambodia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, given the effort they will have to make in terms of guarantees. By not wanting to trust “zero deforestation” certifications to declare the product “negligible risk,” the Commission will penalize “clean” producers in contexts of “difficult governance.” This is tantamount to collective punishment.
Alain Karsenty is an environmental economist and senior scientist at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) in Montpellier, France. He is the author of dozens of scientific articles and co-author of several books.
Banner image: Cutting rainforest trees for a road in Gabon. Image © Markus Mauthe/Greenpeace Media Library.
Related listening: Our podcast recently explored mining and palm oil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sectors where human rights violations and environmental abuses are common, listen here:
