The European Parliament approved a move to postpone a watered-down version of its anti-deforestation law, with implementation pushed back 12 months to the end of 2025.
The Nov. 14 vote to delay the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or the EUDR, by a year was approved with a clear majority of 58%, with 371 votes in favor, 240 against and 30 abstentions. It drew mass support from the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and the far right.
Earlier in the day, an amendment introducing a “no-risk” category into the law was also approved, allowing the EU to decide in which countries the law will be enforced.
The vague proposed criteria in the approved law suggest labeling countries as “no-risk” if they show a net increase in forest cover, even if the forest increase comes from expanding monoculture plantations like oil palm or eucalyptus for paper and pulp, said Trase, a platform that analyzes supply chains. Such monoculture commodities are frequently a driver of deforestation in some regions and devastating for biodiversity.
Now, the EUDR will likely no longer apply to countries such as EU member states, the United States, Russia, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam, raising serious concerns about geopolitical interference in the law's applicability.
“It's a dark day for Europe's environmental credentials,” Julian Oram, policy director at nonprofit Mighty Earth, wrote in an email statement. “The inclusion of a new ‘no risk' category will allow many countries to be considered risk-free, even if deforestation, degradation and illegal practices are still occurring.”
The EUDR originally required companies to prove that products, such as timber, beef, palm oil, cocoa and soy, are not tied to land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
The U.K.-based nonprofit Earthsight added to criticism saying that the no-risk criteria were arbitrary, suggesting they were crafted to appease Europe's powerful agriculture and forestry lobbies.
“The amendments create a dangerous loophole that could open the floodgates for products produced in high-risk countries to be laundered through no-risk countries,” Earthsight's policy lead, Fyfe Strachan, wrote in a statement.
“Regarding deforestation, there is virtually no ‘no-risk' country in the world. … The EPP and far right just invented a bunch of them, dramatically changing the content of the EUDR,” said Michal Wiezik, an EU representative of Slovakia in the centrist Renew Europe party.
However, the regulation will still apply to a smaller handful of commodity-producing nations, whose sense of injustice may be exacerbated with the new rules. Developing nations criticized the EUDR as a “unilateral,” “punitive” and “discriminatory” regulation that unfairly targets their economies.
Indonesia accused the EU of “regulatory imperialism” while a Brazilian minister said Europe is “overstepping on sovereignty.”
Banner image: Clearing for an oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Image by Rhett Butler.
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