Deforestation, EU honors commitments

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Indigenous leaders and human rights activists, who came to Brussels from Liberia, Indonesia and Colombia, delivered the petition to the European Commission on 6/29/2018, which has collected more than 159,000 signatures in less than two months. Keyword, deforestation. Europe fulfills its commitments against deforestation.

Deforestation and climate change


Tropical forests are disappearing
at the rate of 29 million hectares per year. In 2017, an area as large as Italy was destroyed. One football field per second.(1)

The impact on societies and their economies traditional, as well as on the environment, is deadly. Since it is the livelihoods of about 1.6 billion individuals that are being burned. And forests-aside from being an essential source of food-are also home to 80 percent of global biodiversity. With a unique role in the global carbon cycle.



Deforestation



global


emits more

greenhouse gases
Of the entire European Union. Emissions set to continue for at least 7-8 decades, following ecocides. (2) Its motives are different, but united by the extension of monocultures for the production of

commodities


food.

We now have even more evidence that climate change is caused not just by burning coal and oil for transport and energy, but by the industrial food system itself and the corporate quest for profits that drives its expansion. Indeed,
climate change and land grabs are inextricably linked

.’ (3)


Two-thirds of tropical deforestation
are caused by irresponsible forest management for speculative agricultural purposes, linked to the growing demand for soybeans and palm oil. (4) And it is precisely the monotony of demand-always inspired by profit maximization, at any cost-that fuels precisely deforestation.

Europe cannot continue to conniving. At least half of the illegally cleared land is used precisely to satisfy the European market, while banks on the old continent maintain leadership in financing the expansion of the

agribusiness


in former tropical colony countries.


The fires of the

forests
, still ongoing to serve the expansion of oil palm monoculture has hit Indonesia hard. Causing emissions between 207 and 650 tons of carbon per hectare. (5) Causing, in 2015 alone, emissions of between 1.6 trillion and 1.8 trillion tons of CO2. Unparalleled air pollution from the first industrial revolution to the present, with very serious impacts on human health. (6)

Fighting climate change

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, governments on the planet have recognized that stopping deforestation is the simplest and cheapest tool. And that is precisely why a key chapter of the Paris Agreement on climate change concerns suitable actions to mitigate deforestation.

Meeting the internationally agreed objective of keeping global temperature rise below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels will require a cut in global emissions of at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. This reduction will be impossible to achieve without substantial action to combat deforestation‘ (European Commission, ‘
Combatting tropical deforestation: the REDD+ initiative’
) (7)

The goal of the Paris Agreement postulates stopping deforestation and drastically reducing fossil fuel consumption. But it is not enough. Degraded forest ecosystems must be restored by working together with local communities!


Keyword,

agroforestry

.
There is enormous potential in populated agricultural landscapes that can be used to increase carbon storage.(8) And give back to communities-in tropical areas often victims of
land grabbing
– their ancestral lands and their main source of livelihood.

The forest is the source of our lives. This is why deforestation removes and limits our ability to live with dignity. Logging and plantation companies in Indonesia continue to demolish, evict, and destroy our forests and agro-forests. Communities have lost and are still losing their livelihoods. They now have difficulties in finding decent sources of food. Their indigenous knowledge is threatened and they are suffering malnutrition and health problems. Even well-planned development assistance programs cannot replace the benefits of the forests being lost. Action has to be taken to stop rights violations and forest clearance‘ (Franky Samperante, NGO Pusaka, Indonesia). (9)

The petition

On May 4, 2018, more than 20 NGOs around the world have decided to proactively intervene. Collecting more than 159,000 signatures in less than two months.

Objective of the petition is to urge the European Union to fulfill its international commitments to stop deforestation. Promoting the formation of a European Action Plan to protect forests and respect the rights of local communities.

Since 2008, the European Union has been committed to the following. to halt the destruction of forests by 2030 at the latest (assuming that some green area will have survived the incumbent deforestation in that period) and to halve gross tropical deforestation by 2020. (10) Sustainable development goals (
Sustainable Development Goals
) more appropriate-halting deforestation and biodiversity loss and restoring degraded forests by 2020-have meanwhile been defined at the United Nations level.

Less than 18 months to 2020, moreover, European-based industries have not made any concrete progress. As deforestation advances. Shame!

It is time for Europe to fulfill its commitments.

Giulia Torre and Dario Dongo

Notes

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/jun/27/one-football-pitch-of-forest-lost-every-second-in-2017-data-reveals

(2) Grassi G, House J, Dentener F, Federici S, den Elzen M, Penman J. (2017) The key role of forests in meeting climate targets requires science for credible mitigation. Nature Climate Change, 7:220-226

(3) Grain, report ‘
The global farmland grab in 2016: how big, how bad?”
14.6.16

(4) Cf. Supply-Change, report ‘Corporations, Commodities, and Commitments that Count’, March 2015, on https://forest-trends.org//wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Supply-Change_Report.pdf.

(5) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/forests/pdf/palm_oil_study_kh0218208enn_new.pdf

(6) The severe haze of 2015, which lasted as long as three months, caused about 100,300 premature deaths from respiratory diseases in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. V. Greenpeace, report ‘


The Moment of Truth




‘, 19.3.18, on






https://storage.googleapis.com/p4-production-content/international/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/db5ec2fd-gp_mot_v4.6_pages.pdf




(7) https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/forests/deforestation_en

(8) V. FERN, report “Return of the trees’, December 2017, on https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/20_fern_RFN_returntrees.pdf

(9) https://fern.org/sites/default/files/news-pdf/PetitionDeliveryPR_FINAL_0.pdf

(10) This target, to be assessed against deforestation in 2008, was defined in the ‘
Communication on addressing the challenges of deforestation and forest degradation to combat climate change and biodiversity loss
‘, documents COM(2008)645

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Graduated in law, master in European Food Law, she deals with agro-food, veterinary and agricultural legislation. She is a PhD in agrisystem.

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Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.