The European Parliament and the governments of the member states of the European Union reached an agreement to ban the import of several products into the European Union from the night of Monday to Tuesday, December 6, when they contribute to deforestation.

This agreement targets many products such as cocoa, coffee, soy or palm oil. Wood, beef, and rubber are also associated, as well as many related materials (leather, chocolate, furniture, paper, charcoal, etc.). Parliament said in a statement that after December 31, 2020, imports of these products will be banned if they come from deforested land. A statement (in English). Damages caused to all forests will be taken into account.

Importing companies will take responsibility for their supply chain. They need to prove their discovery through crop geolocation data, which can be correlated with satellite photos.

An area larger than the EU has been lost to deforestation

The text proposed by the European Commission in November 2021 has been broadly taken up by member states. MEPs voted in September to strengthen it significantly by expanding the range of products concerned. The European Parliament has called for the scope of the text to be extended to other endangered tree ecosystems, such as the Cerrado Savanna. This extension is conditioned on an agreement between the Parliament’s negotiators and the member states “To Other Forests” The assessment must be made one year after the entry into force of the text.

The agreement must be formally ratified by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The European Parliament recalls in its press release that between 1990 and 2020, an area larger than the European Union was the cause of deforestation, and consumption of products in the European Union was responsible for 10% of this loss. According to the NGO WWF, The European Union is the second largest deforester behind China.