Wednesday, 18 September 2024.
European Union’s anti-deforestation law passed back in 2022 and was adopted in June 2023, allowing companies 18 months to adapt. The law applies to a wide range of products, including soy, cattle, coffee, cocoa, rubber, palm oil, timber and its derivatives, such as beef, printed paper, furniture, chocolate and tyres. Click here and go to Annex 1 for the complete list of derived products.
The definition of “deforestation” in the Regulation encompasses the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not, which includes situations dues to nature disasters.
Here are some parts of the letter sent by Brazil to the European Commission on 11 September 2024.
“Dear Commissioners and High Representative,
The implementation of the European Union's anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR), scheduled to begin at the end of 2024, is a matter of serious concern for various Brazilian export sectors and for the Brazilian government. Brazil is one of the EU’s main suppliers of most of the products targeted by the legislation… To avoid any impact on our trade relations, we request that the EU refrain from implementing the EUDR at the end of 2024 and urgently reassess its approach to the matter…
The EUDR was designed without a proper understanding of the production and export processes of different products and of the realities on the ground in each country. Representatives of the Brazilian sectors affected by the EUDR have visited Brussels and explained…
We acknowledge that environmental challenges transcend national borders… Internationally, sustainable development is an unequivocal priority for Brazil…
However, we consider that unilateral, coercive, and punitive measures erode trust in nationally determined contributions when used as a pretext for imposing trade barriers. Positive incentives are more effective in promoting environmental protection by adequately rewarding and remunerating those who provide environmental services. Financial assistance to developing countries frees up resources for poverty reduction investments and supports the implementation of environmental commitments related to financing, capacity building, and technology transfer, including the allocation of USD 100 billion per year for environmental preservation in developing countries, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. …
We hope to count on the European Union and its member states as partners in addressing these common challenges, on the basis of dialogue, cooperation, and mutual respect, avoiding the imposition of barriers to our bilateral trade.”
Letter was jointly signed by the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Agriculture and Livestock.
Image below was taken from the 2021 study “Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests” by Keiichiro Kanemoto and Nguyen Tien Hoang from the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan.
Using 15 years of remote sensing data, they associated deforestation with international trade and consumption patterns and concluded “We find that, while many developed countries, China and India have obtained net forest gains domestically, they have also increased the deforestation embodied in their imports, of which tropical forests are the most threatened biome.”
Click at the image for that interesting study. Or here for a LinkedIn post.
Tomorrow the final part of this article.
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