Posted on November, 13 2020

People in Europe want to be sure that the products they buy have neither contributed to the destruction of forests and other ecosystems nor led to human rights violations. 

The #Together4Forests campaign is encouraging people to make submissions to the ongoing European Commission public consultation on deforestation to push for a strong EU law to keep products linked to deforestation -- including through fires and nature destruction -- off the European market, and ensure that the production of such commodities has not led to human rights violations. The one million+ submissions make it the largest public consultation on environmental issues in the history of the EU [1].  

This powerful call from citizens follows the strong support shown by the European Parliament last month for a law to stop EU-driven deforestation. 

Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, Senior Forest Policy Officer at WWF’s European Policy Office, said: “Products tainted with deforestation are everywhere in Europe, from chickens fed on soy to ice-cream containing unsustainable palm oil. Right now, people have no way of knowing if their shopping has contributed to the destruction of nature, but we can change this! More than a million people want a strong EU law on deforestation – the EU Commission must publish a plan for a law to take products grown on destroyed land off our supermarket shelves for good.”

Globally, the EU is responsible for over 10% of forest destruction, driven by its consumption of commodities like meat, dairy, soy for animal feed, palm oil, rubber,  coffee and cacao. Since 2015, 10 million hectares (larger than the size of Portugal) of forests worldwide have been lost to deforestation each year [2]. 

The Commission’s public consultation on deforestation is due to close on 10 December. 

References:

[1] The deforestation public consultation is the second most responded-to EU public consultation ever, following the European Commission’s consultation on summertime arrangements. 

[2] http://www.fao.org/state-of-forests/en/ 

Notes to the editor:

#Together4Forests is a campaign led by ClientEarth, Conservation International, Environmental Investigation Agency, Greenpeace, and WWF, and backed by 150 environmental groups. Click here to see the full list. 

Contacts: 

Sophie Bauer
Senior Communications Officer, Deforestation
sbauer@wwf.eu 
+32 471 05 25 11

Anke Schulmeister - Oldenhove
Senior Forest Policy Officer
aschulmeister@wwf.eu 
+32 485 84 31 44