Dozens of environmental organizations based in Brazil on Monday asked the European Union (EU) to pass legislation banning all imports linked to deforestation, criticizing the “gaps” in a bill.
The letter from the 34 organizations is released as the bloc’s environment ministers prepare to meet on Thursday to debate a proposal to ban products that encourage deforestation, which would impose controls on imports of beef, soy, palm, cocoa and coffee.
The organizations said that the proposal is “positive and necessary”, but there are points that need to be “improved” so that it has a real impact on deforestation in exporting countries such as Brazil, which is home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest and is a leader in the export of many of these products.
“Deforestation needs to be eradicated worldwide if humanity is to have a chance of stabilizing the Earth’s warming,” begins the letter, signed by groups that include the Brazil office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Observatory of Climate and The Nature Conservancy.
The EU is among the first to draft this legislation since 141 countries signed the so-called Glasgow Declaration, a commitment to “stop and reverse” deforestation by 2030.
Brazil was one of the signatories of the voluntary commitment, launched at the UN climate summit in November last year. But deforestation has increased in the country in recent years, especially during the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
Since the far-right president, who has agribusiness as one of his strongest bases, took power in 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by more than 75% over the previous decade.
The NGOs said the draft plan, presented in November, defines “forests” too narrowly and excludes most key ecosystems in Brazil, such as the wetlands of the Pantanal, the Cerrado and grass formations such as the Pampa, they said.
They also urged EU officials to add more items to the list of products to control, such as cotton, corn and canned meat, and ensure that the measures are applied to entire farms, not just part of them.
“On extensive properties, a landowner can maintain a deforestation-free production area to export to Europe and deforest elsewhere,” they said.
They also called for “firm guarantees” on human rights, in particular to ensure that agro-industry is not pushing indigenous peoples off their lands.
