Von der Leyen should focus on implementation of EU's deforestation law, not its rollback

These last few months have been fraught with pushback against the EU’s bold new anti-deforestation regulation. Pressure has come from within the EU, egged on by the Austrian agriculture minister, and from external trading partners.

Finally, on 12 September, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz piled on by urging delaying enforcement for six months.

This is a deplorable abdication of leadership in the face of a climate emergency and Europe’s responsibility to do its part. The need for the deforestation law is as pressing as ever.

The EU’s Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) requires EU companies to ensure that commodities they export or import have been produced in conditions that respect environmental laws and laws on land use rights, and that were farmed on land that was not deforested after 2020.

In 2023, the world lost the equivalent of almost 10 soccer fields of climate-critical forest per minute. The cause is clear: commercial-scale agriculture is by far the single largest driver of deforestation worldwide.

The EU’s deforestation-tainted consumption of the seven commodities targeted by the EUDR –cattle, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood– is second only to China’s.

And it’s not just about forests.

Don't send the rules back to square one

The rights of the people impacted by the supply chains of products consumed by Europeans are frequently violated: whether it is trafficked children illegally laboring in cocoa plantations, Indigenous peoples forcibly displaced by logging companies, or workers in oil palm plantations sickened with the pesticides they spray.

The EUDR addresses these issues by requiring stringent due diligence that sheds light on long supply chains that often obscure human rights violations. Voluntary pledges cannot substitute for this regulation.

Decades of unfulfilled pledges show that without penalties for non-compliance and without binding rules to ensure a level playing field, companies will not — and arguably, cannot — do what it takes.

An open letter calling for timely implementation of the EUDR from the confectionary giant Barry Callebaut echoes these points. “It is undeniable that EUDR requires a lot of effort and resources for compliance,” Callebaut wrote, but “these efforts are essential to drive sustainable transformation in the cocoa supply chain.”

Callebaut also stressed the text of the law should not be revised, as it may leave the company’s efforts to conform “inadequate.” In other words, companies that have sought to align with the new rules should not be sent back to square one so that laggards can be accommodated.

The same goes for EU trading partners. Indeed, while some countries like Brazil have been vocally critical, others are quietly making progress.

Thailand, the world’s largest producer of natural rubber, has reportedly stepped up efforts to improve traceability, enabling smallholders to sell at a premium.

Ivory Coast, the world largest producer of cocoa, is working to register every small cocoa farm and mapping their plots. Firms in Argentina and Paraguay, among the world’s top soy producers, are preparing deforestation-free soy shipments to the EU.

The law can't come soon enough

Back in Brussels, we are still waiting for a clear statement on the EUDR from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Opponents will point to recent comments from an Austrian member of the European Parliament, who swears von der Leyen pledged to delay implementation at a recent closed meeting of her political party.

In von der Leyen’s political guidelines for her new term, however, she stated that the Commission “must and will stay the course on all of our goals, including those set out in the European Green Deal,” adding the EU’s focus “must now be in implementing what [has been] agreed.”

In her mission letter, von der Leyen tasked Jessika Roswall, candidate for the environment Commissioner post, to “focus on enforcement and implementation of existing legislation related to environment.”

Most recently, the Commission reportedly told the World Trade Organization (WTO) it would not be delaying implementation. Yet, still no public statement from von der Leyen herself.

For those on the front lines of deforestation, the EU law can’t come soon enough. Just a couple of weeks ago, I spoke to an Indigenous community in Malaysian Borneo that was fighting to preserve their ancestral land from a logging company. They are facing eviction and destitution.

“We have nowhere else to go,” the village chief said, as he showed me the letters they had sent to government agencies protesting the order. A few hundred kilometres from there was the port from which wood pellets from those forests had been exported to France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

This is why we need the EUDR, and we need von der Leyen to speak up clearly and unequivocally in support of the regulation.

Luciana Téllez Chávez is a senior environment and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

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