Earthsight's Director, Sam Lawson, on why the EPP's amendments to the EU's landmark deforestation law are so dangerous👇
The European People's Party's amendments to the EU Deforestation Regulation #EUDR are a Trojan horse that look innocuous but will make the law nearly impossible to enforce. Here’s why: Just over a week ago, Christine Schneider and the EPP managed to get a slender majority in the European Parliament to vote for changes to this landmark #deforestation law that carve out exemptions for products from countries designated ‘no-risk.’ Schneider describes the changes as a measure to reduce red-tape. But those of us with experience investigating supply chain violations can see what these insidious loopholes will really do – create opportunities to evade the law. What makes a country no risk? The EPP, in its wisdom, has set out three criteria: that the country has seen stable or increasing forest cover since 1990, that they have signed the Paris Agreement and other relevant conventions, and that their national forest laws are “are strictly implemented in full transparency.” So, what’s the problem? ▪️ 133 countries and territories have increased their forest area since 1990, and almost all UN member states have signed the Paris Agreement. So this loophole could potentially see half the world exempted from the need to ensure their products were produced without deforestation, or to track where they were grown. ▪️ The amendment does not distinguish between natural forest and monoculture timber plantations. Countries which are rapidly bulldozing natural forests and replacing them with ecologically dead monocultures of foreign species would nevertheless count as ‘no-risk’. Much of the deforestation in Indonesia since 1990 would not count, as it has been to make way for monoculture acacia trees. ▪️ Products from China would be likely to have an exemption under these criteria – giving a green flag to a well-known laundering route for timber. Decades of NGO investigations have repeatedly shown how Chinese companies import illegal timber from known high-risk areas and export it as wood products with its origin disguised. ▪️ The amendments state that only 1 in 1000 operators importing goods from no-risk countries will be checked by enforcement authorities. With the odds of detection so low, why wouldn’t companies try to fraudulently pass their goods off as coming from a no-risk country? ▪️ What’s more, we know that companies will do this because they do this now – for example, to evade sanctions or get around border charges. With the Parliament asleep at the wheel, it’s down to the EU Commission and member state representatives in the EU Council to save the law. Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission know the harm these changes will cause. We’re relying on them to stand strong and protect the law from being fatally undermined. Jessika Roswall Maroš Šefčovič Christophe Hansen Wopke Hoekstra Marie Toussaint Pascal Canfin Delara Burkhardt Earthsight