EU: Relevant steps to mitigate global deforestation
Umweltbundesamt provides information for European Parliament about halting deforestation
Global deforestation is proceeding at alarming rates, causing biodiversity loss and accelerating climate change. The European Union is one of the main importers of raw materials and products originated from deforested areas and thus bears part of the responsibility for this ecological loss. In the past decades, worldwide initiatives by private and public institutions to stop deforestation have been launched. However, their effectiveness was limited and further action is needed.
Therefore, the European Parliament is elaborating proposals for new measures to minimize EU-driven deforestation. In September 2020, independent experts provided the ENVI Committee (European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) with knowhow on this topic, among them experts of the Umweltbundesamt (Environment Agency Austria). The information provided covered the scale of EU-driven global deforestation, the supply chain of raw materials originating from deforested areas, efforts already taken & possible EU regulatory frameworks.
The information provided serves the committee as a basis for a report on "EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation". The report describes why EU action is needed and gives an insight on policy options at EU-level, including different possibilities on certification standards and mandatory labelling.
