If you are one of those people who sometimes stands in the store and studies the text on the back of, for example, a bar of chocolate, to find out if you can buy it without helping to destroy the rainforest, then shopping in the future will be a little easier. The EU has now agreed a new law which will prevent goods and products from helping to destroy the forests both inside and outside the EU’s borders. It is the world’s first law of this type, and the law is “a great victory for the forests” even if it does not go far enough in some respects. That’s what Anne-Sofie Henningsen says, who is an adviser at the nature conservation organization Verdens Skove. The forests will no longer end up in the shopping basket Every day, an enormous number of different goods are transported across the borders of the EU. Some products contain ingredients such as palm oil, cocoa, coffee, beef and soy, which are known to cause rainforest destruction. This is because the ingredients are often grown in countries such as Brazil, where rainforests are cut down to make way for agriculture. The new law requires that if businesses wish to trade across the EU’s borders, and if it is about products that contain the seven ingredients that are most harmful to forests, then the businesses must be able to document that the ingredients have been produced in a way that does not fell or deteriorate the forests. This applies regardless of whether the companies have received official permission in their home country to clear, for example, rainforest. Destruction of forests is destruction of forests, and it will no longer be tolerated for the ingredients on the list. In practice, the businesses must be able to trace each individual ingredient back to the piece of land where, for example, the coffee comes from. Random checks will be carried out on up to nine per cent of shipments that cross borders in the EU, and if a shipment of goods is taken without the necessary documentation, there will be consequences. The business receives a fine of at least four percent of the part of the company’s annual turnover that is located in the EU, and the company will also be excluded from being able to bid for contracts to deliver to the public sector for a period. More than just trees When you talk about protecting nature, many probably first think of the trees in the forests, and they are important for the climate and for biological diversity. But there are also many other forms of nature that can be destroyed by the production of a number of goods, and this is not covered by the new law. The Forestry Act is limited to protecting a rather narrow definition of “forest”, although during the negotiations the European Parliament worked to make the Act more comprehensive, so that it also covered so-called “other wooded areas”. They failed to do so, but as a compromise it was decided that within the first year of the law, the commission will assess whether other wooded areas should be included, and after two years whether all ecosystems can be covered. – We would have liked to see the final law not only protect forests, but also other ecosystems such as wooded savannas and the like. Now we have a law that protects forests, but at the same time allows other ecosystems to be cleared without consequences – at least for the next two years, says Anne-Sofie Henningsen. She would also have liked to see the rights of indigenous peoples stated more strongly in the law. When they get rights to the forest where they live, they often help to protect it far better than if the forest is owned by outsiders.
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New law to protect forests
