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Bert Ernste

Leaked EU anti-deforestation law omits fragile grasslands and wetlands

The Guardian

Campaigners say draft regulation contains many loopholes, including exclusion of Cerrado and Pantanal.

The fragile Cerrado grasslands and the Pantanal wetlands, both under threat from soy and beef exploitation, have been excluded from a European Union draft anti-deforestation law, campaigners have said, and there are many other concerning loopholes. (...)

The long-awaited draft regulation, expected to be published in December, will be limited to controlling EU imports of beef, palm oil, soy, wood, cocoa and coffee, according to a report seen by the Guardian. (...)

Campaigners said the EU risks getting it wrong. They criticised the exclusion from the proposals of rubber, leather, maize and other kinds of meat, linking pigs and chickens to “embedded deforestation” through the use of soy as animal feed. (...)

The Together4Forests campaign called for the regulation to ensure protection for all kinds of ecosystems, not only forests. (...)

Other ecosystems will be excluded, even though the EU document concedes that stricter rules to protect the Amazon rainforest “have already been shown to accelerate conversion of Cerrado savannah and Pantanal wetlands for agricultural production”. It also notes that the Cerrado is “a critical region for storing carbon”, a source of water, vegetation and abundant plant life, but concludes that including such ecosystems would make it more difficult to monitor forests. (...)

The document also reveals that the law “will not specifically target the financial sector”, a blow to campaigners who argued that European banks play a role in fuelling deforestation through their lending. (...)

Full article

Photo of otter in Pantanal
An endangered giant otter in a lagoon in western Pantanal – which is one of the world’s largest freshwater wetlands but is not covered by the draft law. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy.

Tags: #environment #eu #european_union #brazil #brasil #brazilie #bolivia #paraguay #cerrado #pantanal #wetlands #savannah #peatlands #cattle_farming #soy #beef #soy_plantation #palm_oil #palm_oil_plantation #deforestation #rubber #maize #wood #cocoa #coffee #plantation #coffee_plantation #maize_plantation #agriculture #Together4Forests