- About 74% of the Brazilian Cerrado falls outside the scope of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
- Unless illegalities are found, such as breaches to national law, commodities from areas of the Cerrado that are excluded from the EUDR will be able to enter the EU.
- Deforestation rates in the Cerrado increased by 43% in 2023, with the greatest destruction concentrated in Brazil’s state of Bahia, where almost a quarter of its original 9 million hectares (22 million acres) of vegetation have been lost since 1985.
- NGOs are calling on EU authorities to review and expand the regulation at its one-year review period. However, the European Commission recently proposed a 12-month delay in the implementation of the EUDR, which could affect the date of the review.
As it stands, about 74% of the Brazilian Cerrado falls outside the scope of the EU’s anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR), legislation to protect forests worldwide. To avoid greater pressure on these lands and the communities that inhabit them, Indigenous leaders and NGOs are calling on EU authorities to review and expand the regulation at its one-year review period.
The EUDR, set to prevent products linked to deforestation from entering the EU starting Jan. 1, 2024, applies to any geographic area where palm oil, cattle, coffee, cocoa, soy, wood and rubber are produced. However, for it to be considered deforested land, it has to fall under the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) definition of “forest,” which excludes certain savannas and grasslands. Unless illegalities are found according to national and international laws (including conservation laws), commodities produced in areas not covered by the EUDR will be able to enter the EU.
This includes most of the Cerrado, an ecosystem that is known as the “cradle of waters” because of its vital role in replenishing the main Brazilian and South American watersheds, as well as providing energy and food security for millions of people. It is Brazil’s second-largest biome, covering more than 20% of the country’s territory — an area the size of Mexico — and is the world’s most biodiverse savanna.
If it is not applied in equal measure to all biomes, “the EUDR will contribute to an even greater pressure on deforestation in non-forest biomes, also increasing the violence experienced in Indigenous territories that are not located in the Amazon or the Atlantic Rainforest,” Dinamam Tuxá, the executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, said in a press statement.
The risk here, then, is the potential “leakage effect,” which is when measures to protect forests lead to a shift of deforestation in another region, environmentalists say. Producers may decide to move their operations from EUDR-covered areas to unprotected savannas and grasslands, exacerbating the expansion of certain commodities and placing greater strain on ecosystems. Activists also worry that Indigenous peoples and other traditional communities, such as the Quilombolas and Geraizeiros, may be impacted by this effect.
Richard Fuchs, a researcher from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) at the Campus Alpin, told Mongabay that the exclusion of maize and other commodities from the EUDR could also be exploited by producers who could switch their soy crops to maize, in a move known as land swapping.
Territories under threat
Around 216 Indigenous territories, belonging to 83 different ethnic groups, are located in the Cerrado, as well as 44 Quilombola territories. According to Isabel Figueiredo, the coordinator of the Cerrado Program at the Institute of Population, Society and Nature, these territories may be threatened by land-grabbing and other mechanisms used by agribusiness to expand production.
Some of these communities already struggle with encroachment and pesticide contamination. In a recent investigation, Earthsight linked soy, used as animal feed in European chicken farms, to deforestation, land-grabbing, corruption and violence against traditional communities in the Cerrado.
“Threats and armed confrontation have become part of everyday life for traditional communities who have inhabited the region for generations,” said Fyfe Strachan, a policy and communications lead at Earthsight. “The aggressive expansion of agribusiness is also reducing habitats and threatening the survival of one-fifth of the Cerrado’s species,” such as the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) and giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus).
Unlike its Amazon neighbor, where destruction has been curtailed in recent years as a result of national policies to protect it, deforestation rates in the Cerrado increased by 43% in 2023, with the greatest destruction concentrated in the state of Bahia, where almost a quarter of its original 9 million hectares (22 million acres) of vegetation — an area the size of Wales — have been lost since 1985.
The inclusion of the Cerrado in a review of the EUDR would make “a meaningful contribution to slowing deforestation in these critical ecosystems,” Strachan told Mongabay.
Thomas Haahr, a press officer at the European Parliament, told Mongabay that during the first review of the regulation, which will be carried out within one year of its enforcement, they “will assess the impact of further expanding the scope to ‘other wooded land.’”
However, certain researchers are in favor of a proposed 12-month delay to the EUDR in order to refine the legislation now rather than wait for a one-year review. The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry welcomes a delay, soon to be voted on by the EU Parliament, for a few reasons, though not necessarily to protect the Cerrado. In a press release, the organization mentions fixing gaps in how the regulation understands forests.
“Our research points to the need for a more nuanced understanding of forest systems and tree-based land use,” the organization wrote.
Other researchers and advocates fear a delay will kill momentum, allow businesses to prevent its implementation and lead to more deforestation.
Banner image: Cattle herds in the Amazon and Cerrado tend to have few head of cattle per hectare. Restoring pastures can increase the number of cattle in the same amount of space, which researchers say could reduce the need for deforestation. Image © Tommaso Protti/Greenpeace.
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Citation:
Fuchs, R., Raymond, J., Winkler, K. & Rounsevell, M. (2024). The EU’s new anti-deforestation law has severe loopholes that could be exploited by the forthcoming EU-MERCOSUR trade agreement. Environmental Research Letters, 19(9): 091005. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad69ab
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