MEPs have adopted an ambitious position aimed at prohibiting the arrival on the European market of products that have contributed to the destruction of ecosystems, and want to restrict the use of wood as renewable energy.
by
Small advances, and large. Meeting in Strasbourg, the MEPs have spoken on several crucial texts for the future of the forests, Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 September. After a particularly devastating summer for these ecosystems, the adoption of robust legislation to combat imported deforestation was unanimously hailed. The supervision of the use of non -transformed wood – the primary forest biomass – to produce energy also represents, for environmental organizations, an important first step, although largely insufficient.
“It remains easier for the European Parliament to be ambitious to protect the forests outside the EU rather than those located on our soil, but these votes represent in all cases progress”, observes the ECO ECOLOPISTER MARIE TOUSSAINT.
The adoption Tuesday of a regulation prohibiting the importation of deforestation products even represents, for many, “a historic victory”. “This vote is a clear” yes “: a” yes “to the protection of the forests, the savannas and the rights of the indigenous peoples, and a” yes “to the calls of the citizens of the EU who do not want to fuel the destruction of Nature by their consumption “, welcomed Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, forest specialist within the European Office of the Global Fund for Nature (WWF).
List of expanded products
Currently, the deforestation of the Amazon or the Congo basin is partly played in the plates and trolleys of European citizens: imports of the Union – in particular beef, wood, palm oil, soy, coffee and cocoa – are the source of around 16 % of deforestation linked to world trade. To end it, the European Parliament wants to force companies to guarantee, thanks to the use of satellite images, which the goods they wish to put on the market are not linked to a territory having been deforested after December 31 2019.
“It is a world first and it is extremely radical, praised Pascal Canfin, the president of the Environment Commission of the European Parliament (Renew). From now on, with this law, things will be simple: if a company does not Can not prove that what it matters does not come from deforestation, so it does not fit into the European market. “
You have 66.6% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.