- Some European Union officials want to simplify a section of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the bloc’s landmark law that seeks to eliminate commodities associated with deforestation.
- A European Parliament proposal wants to reconsider a benchmarking system that categorizes trading partners into high, standard and low deforestation risk.
- Supporters of the proposal say EUDR rules are still too complicated for producers, while environmental groups say the world’s forests can’t afford further delays.
A last-minute proposal to revise the European Union’s sweeping antideforestation law has conservationists worried about yet another delay to the law’s implementation and weaker oversight of supply chains.
The EU deforestation-free products regulation, or EUDR, is scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year, imposing new restrictions on imports linked to forest loss. But some officials want to simplify a section of the law to make trade easier — a hazardous delay tactic, some critics say.
“Further attempts to delay the application of the regulation or to undermine its well thought through architecture will damage the credibility of the EU and frustrate the efforts of companies and third countries that have invested in reaching compliance,” said Together4Forests, a campaign of more than 220 environmental groups.
The EUDR requires producers — including those in European countries — to prove cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood weren’t sourced from land that was deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
Technically, the law took effect in 2023 but allowed countries an 18-month transition period to give producers time to meet the new trade regulations. Last year, the transition period was extended by another 12 months, citing producers’ lack of preparedness. It’s now due to go into force on Dec. 30 this year.
The rigor of the regulations each country faces is based on a benchmarking system that categorizes them as either high, standard or low risk. This has been a source of controversy for countries worried they’ll be unfairly labeled, potentially forcing them to face stricter oversight.
Producers have to complete risk assessments, submit to audits and receive technical assistance, while also reporting geographic coordinates for land plots.
In May, members of the European Parliament submitted a motion to simplify the benchmarking system, arguing that regulations are still too complicated for producers. It was approved July 9.
“The methodology for the risk categorization of countries lacks transparency in relation to how various risk factors are weighted and does not account for regional variability within countries,” said a complaint submitted to an EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting in May. “This raises serious concerns about the fairness and credibility of the classification methodology.”
A preliminary list of 194 countries was published in May, with 50 listed as standard risk and 140 as low risk. Only Belarus, North Korea, Myanmar and Russia — countries facing EU sanctions — were listed as high risk.
The main suggestion in the motion was to include a fourth, “insignificant risk” category in the benchmarking system. This could allow producers in countries with minimal deforestation, or net forest gain, to avoid some checks on their products, such as submitting the coordinates of their plots. A similar proposal was introduced by the European Parliament last year and voted down by the Council of the European Union. Both institutions are legislative bodies in the EU.
The newest motion was introduced by the center-right European People’s Party, with some officials arguing that deforestation isn’t a problem in many countries, especially in Europe. However, supporters of the EUDR pointed out that the law protects against forest degradation in addition to deforestation.
“Deforestation is not really an issue [in the EU],” Klervi Le Guenic, a campaign manager at Canopée, a French NGO that’s part of the Together4Forests campaign, told Mongabay. “But there is degradation linked to wood, which is a huge topic in a lot of European countries.”
She added, “It’s really clear that what they’re asking is just an exemption for European countries so they won’t have to comply with the regulation.”
Adding a fourth category would require revising the text of the law, which could not only delay its implementation beyond the end of this year, critics said, but also open the door to additional changes as part of a broader “omnibus” reform package.
“It is virtually impossible that the [European] Commission could produce a new methodology for classification of countries ahead of … the new date the EUDR is set to become applicable,” Greenpeace said in a statement this month.
During previous postponements, experts warned that delays are disastrous for the environment, resulting in the loss of thousands of hectares of forest. Ahead of last year’s postponement, a report for the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, found that waiting another year would result in around 230,000 hectares (about 570,000 acres) of deforestation.
Last year saw record-breaking deforestation from fires across the globe, most of them started to clear land for agriculture, according to Global Forest Watch data.
Should the fourth benchmarking category go into effect, it could unravel the impact of the entire law, critics said. Countries that manage to obtain the insignificant risk category could become a bridge for traders trying to avoid penalties for deforestation.
“It’s a way of laundering commodities through ‘no-risk’ countries,” Le Guenic said.
The motion presented in the European Parliament isn’t a binding amendment, but can be formally considered by the European Commission and the Council of the European Union. Both bodies have to agree on changes to the law.
Officials haven’t indicated yet whether they will take up the proposal. On July 22, the commission asked for stakeholder input on how to make EU environmental laws “faster, easier and cheaper to implement” before considering the proposal.
“Our objective is to gather insight from stakeholders and citizens on how to simplify environmental legislation without compromising our high environmental standards,” said Jessika Roswall, the EU commissioner for the environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy.
Banner image: Sifting coffee beans in Porciuncula, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
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