The EU bans imports that contribute to deforestation

The European Parliament and EU member states have agreed to ban imports of products that contribute to deforestation, such as cocoa, coffee and soy, a decision that could affect Brazil.

Various related products (leather, chocolate, furniture, printed paper, charcoal) such as palm oil, wood, beef and rubber are also at risk, the European Parliament said in a statement.

Imports will be banned If these products come from areas deforested after December 2020, taking into account the damage not only to primary forests but also to whole forests. Importing companies are responsible for the supply chain and must prove their traceability through crop geolocation data linked to satellite images.

is the European Union Responsible for 16% of global deforestation by import and The second largest destroyer of rainforests after ChinaAccording to the non-governmental organization Global Fund for Nature.

The text was proposed by the European Commission in November 2021, and the discussion of the main lines of the document was taken up by the member states, but the representatives voted in September to strengthen it significantly, expanding the range of products in question – in particular to rubber, which was not in the initial plan.

The European Parliament asked to extend the scope of the text to other threatened forest ecosystems, such as the Cerrado Savanna (Brazil/Paraguay/Bolivia), where some of the EU’s soy imports come from.

The agreement reached between the European Parliament and the negotiators of the Member States, after long negotiations, finally stipulates that this extension to “other forest lands” should be evaluated one year after the entry into force of the text.

Likewise, after two years, the European Commission is obliged to study expanding the scope of application to other products (such as maize, which MEPs want to target from now on), carbon storage and other ecosystems rich in biodiversity, but also to the financial sector – another demand of MEPs.