What did the E.U. do to protect forests?

The European Union passed a regulation that will protect forests around the world and transform the global supply chain. Can it be replicated in the United States?

Forests

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Sammy Herdman

Former Save The Boreal Forest Campaign, Associate, Environment America

Jade Boehmer

Environment America Intern

In 2021, our planet lost more than 25 million hectares of tree cover, a land area nearly the size of the United Kingdom. Ninety-five percent of deforestation, the process of converting forests into land for agriculture or development, occurs in the tropics. Forest degradation, or cutting down forests without converting the land to other uses, is rampant in boreal forests around the world. 

The production of just a few global commodities drives the vast majority of deforestation and degradation. These products, including beef, palm oil, soy and wood, are called forest-risk commodities.

Forests provide innumerable benefits. They are reservoirs of genetic diversity— tropical rainforests cover less than 10% of our planet’s land but host two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity. The North American boreal forest, which covers 1.5 billion acres in Canada and Alaska, is a breeding ground for billions of birds and shelters more than 85 species of mammals, such as caribou, elk, beavers, snowshoe hares and red squirrels. Furthermore, many Indigenous traditions and livelihoods are tied to the health of forests.

In addition to harming ecosystems and communities, deforestation and forest degradation has devastating impacts on our climate. Forests absorb enough carbon dioxide to offset one-and-a-half times the amount of carbon emissions released by the United States each year. The trees and soil of the Canadian boreal forest alone store nearly twice as much carbon as all of the recoverable oil reserves in the world, combined. But, when forests are removed or degraded, carbon that trees have captured from the atmosphere and stored for centuries is released. In 2020, 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were added to the atmosphere from tropical forest loss. One study found that a disturbed forest takes on average five to 10 years to recover just 10% of its canopy cover. The negative consequences of deforestation and forest degradation have sparked an international conversation about how to conserve forests and ensure they’re managed sustainably.

Sustainable forest management has been in the lexicon since the 18th Century, but little progress has been made toward global forest conservation. Modern advancements in technology provide exciting opportunities to pass rigorous policies to protect forests. There’s also a growing political will to do so: in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations (UN) committed to protect “Life on Land,” by conserving ecosystems, including forests.

One way the European Union (EU) is protecting life on land is through their European Green Deal, which encompasses their Forest Strategy for 2030. The EU recently made a large stride toward protecting forests around the world by passing a regulation for deforestation-free products. The regulation requires companies to provide the precise geographic location where the commodities originated, ensuring that forest-risk commodities sold in the EU are verifiably deforestation-free. Using a variety of technology, including satellite data, companies will be able to ensure that no deforestation has occurred in that location after December 2020. Once this regulation goes into full effect, European consumers can be certain that the products they use aren’t contributing to deforestation.

The EU policy to protect forests provides a roadmap for how other governments can set their own higher anti-deforestation standards. In the U.S., similar bills have been working their way through state governments, including the New York Senate Bill S5921A and California’s Assembly Bill 416. These deforestation-free procurement bills require that companies working with the state governments implement measures to ensure that forest-risk commodities aren’t originating on  deforested land. Hopefully, with the EU regulation setting a precedent, these bills will be signed into law.

Deforestation-free policies are a beacon of hope in a time seemingly defined by serious environmental problems and unprecedented forest loss. Requiring companies to identify the precise origin of their products has the power to transform our global market. Supply chains that were once distant and opaque will become transparent. Rather than vaguely understanding that chocolate bars come from the tropics, consumers may eventually know whether the cocoa in their chocolate bars come from a sustainably managed farm in Ghana, or a deforested tropical rainforest in Côte d’Ivoire. The transparency promised by the EU’s regulation for deforestation-free products is truly astounding and will bring much needed accountability to the corporations that source products from all over the world, especially unique, and uniquely vulnerable ecosystems.

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Authors

Sammy Herdman

Former Save The Boreal Forest Campaign, Associate, Environment America

Ellen Montgomery

Director, Public Lands Campaign, Environment America

Ellen runs campaigns to protect America's beautiful places, from local beachfronts to remote mountain peaks. Prior to her current role, Ellen worked as the organizing director for Environment America’s Climate Defenders campaign. Ellen lives in Denver, where she likes to hike in Colorado's mountains.

Jade Boehmer

Environment America Intern

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