200 organizations demand that the Spanish Government make an unequivocal commitment to combat imported deforestation

200 organizations demand that the Spanish Government make an unequivocal commitment to combat imported deforestation

• At the next EU Environment Council on March 17, Spain must play a fundamental role in improving the proposed regulation to fight imported deforestation.

• Regulation negotiations enter a critical phase in the European Parliament and EU Council as pressure from industry mounts.

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, and the minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, received today the Position of civil society on the proposal for a European regulation to fight against deforestation imported. In the document, which has been signed by almost 200 organizations, the Spanish Government is asked to commit to solving the deficiencies in the regulation in the EU Council negotiations.

The next meeting of Environment Ministers of the European Union, on March 17 in Brussels, will be key in the negotiations because it is expected that by then the legislative text will have been reviewed and amended by the Member States.

The signatory organizations denounce that the EU is currently the world's second largest responsible for tropical deforestation due to its imports of agricultural and livestock products, such as palm oil and soybeans.

“The commitment of the Spanish Government in the fight against imported deforestation is still not sufficiently clear, despite the fact that Spain is the third European country with the greatest responsibility for this serious problem,” said Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace Spain. , Mighty Earth, SEO/BirdLife, WWF and the Spanish Development NGO Coordinator, the organizations that are coordinating the work of civil society on this regulation in Spain.

The position, which has also been sent to members of the European Parliament, expresses its positive assessment of the European Commission's proposal against imported deforestation. In this way, it describes it as a fundamental advance in environmental governance worldwide and a great opportunity to end the negative footprint of the EU economy on people and the planet, as well as to fulfill its commitments. related to climate, biodiversity and human rights.

One aspect of the proposal is that it requires companies selling certain raw materials on the EU market to trace their origin and demonstrate that they are not linked to the destruction or degradation of forests or human rights violations. However, the draft has significant deficiencies that substantially and unnecessarily weaken its real impact.

For the signatory organizations, these deficiencies could be resolved if the European Parliament and the EU Member States had the necessary will to improve it, eliminating certain ambiguities and strengthening certain essential elements of the proposal.

The statement delivered to Ribera and Planas proposes that the regulations include ecosystems other than forests, such as forests and wetlands, which are being destroyed to supply EU industries with raw materials and which are of great importance for climate action. and biodiversity.

On the other hand, it suggests including in the legal text a series of related products and raw materials that also cause deforestation, such as, for example, rubber, viscose, sugar cane and corn.

Likewise, the organizations demand that the regulation oblige companies to comply with all international instruments for the protection of human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, which now suffer the violation of their rights by the industry that markets raw materials and products in Spain.

Furthermore, they call on the Government to address the impact of investments by the European financial sector on deforestation and degradation of ecosystems, considering that Spanish banks are in fourth position in having financed agroindustrial activities associated with deforestation.

“Citizens have expressed on numerous occasions that they oppose deforestation. Spain, due to its dependence on soy and palm oil, has a key role in ensuring that the EU has ambitious regulations that ensure a diet free of deforestation and that respects the rights of local communities who are the ones who really protect the ecosystems”, have been highlighted by Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace Spain, Mighty Earth, SEO/BirdLife, WWF and the Coordinator of Development Organizations.

We leave you the audio of the position of the Government of Spain and the parliamentary groups regarding this regulation.