Source: European Parliament
The regulation on Deforestation-free products (EUDR)[1] aims to prevent the placing on the EU market of products associated with deforestation and forest degradation.
The EUDR requires that specific commodities — soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa, rubber or coffee and their derived products — placed in the EU market are deforestation free, i.e. were produced on land that has not been subject to deforestation after 31 December 2020.
The EUDR sets mandatory due diligence requirements for any company intending to place those commodities and products on the EU market or to export such products from the EU.
The Commission remains fully committed to the Green Deal’s[2] central objective of making the EU climate-neutral by 2050. To this end, the Commission intends to propose setting out a 90% emissions reduction target for 2040 in the European Climate Law[3]. The Commission will also develop an ambitious and robust European Climate Adaptation Plan[4].
The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030[5] provides that 30% of all EU land and sea area should be covered by protected areas, and that 10% of land and sea areas, including all remaining primary and old-growth forests in the EU, should become strictly protected areas by 2030.
According to the subsidiarity principle it is, however, up to Member States, to define the criteria and the concrete protection measures for their old-growth forests.
A Commission Staff working document[6] with further criteria and guidance for protected area designations recommends that additional protected area designations should focus, amongst others, on the information included in European and national red lists. A European Red list of trees[7] has been published in 2019.
- [1] Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation and repealing Regulation (EU) No 995/2010, OJ L 150, 9.6.2023, p. 206-247.
- [2] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
- [3] https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/european-climate-law_en
- [4] https://commission.europa.eu/document/e6cd4328-673c-4e7a-8683-f63ffb2cf648_en (p. 22).
- [5] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/biodiversity-strategy-2030_en
- [6] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/criteria-and-guidance-protected-areas-designations-staff-working-document_en
- [7] https://iucn.org/resources/publication/european-red-list-trees