From ... in Environmental — Sep 9, 2024

EU Should Address Human Rights Risks to Achieve Deforestation-Free Supply Chains

We’re standing on a ledge overlooking a vast expanse of oil palm trees while crickets chirp and swallows dart overhead.

Balang (pseudonym) is describing how his Indigenous Penan community lost everything when their forest was bulldozed to give way to the plantation below. “We didn’t agree, we didn’t sign anything,” he emphasized. Once self-sufficient hunters and gatherers in Malaysian Borneo, the bountiful land that supported them is now only a memory.

The rainforest and the livelihood of Balang’s community could have been protected if their land rights had been respected. Too many communities still experience this critical vulnerability: according to the Rights and Resources Initiative, while Indigenous Peoples and local communities have customary rights over more than 1.3 million hectares of land, those rights have not been formally recognized by governments. Efforts to slow deforestation associated with business operations have usually been voluntary and have mostly failed. This is why the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products is a necessary departure from the obsolete voluntary model. Beginning in 2025, the EU’s common market will only accept deforestation-free cattle, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood products. A cornerstone of the law’s enforcement will be country risk benchmarking, which the European Commission must complete by the end of this year. Customs officials are required to carry out triple the checks on relevant merchandise originating from high-risk areas when they arrive or depart EU shores (EU member states will also be benchmarked). Under the EU regulation, the Commission is obliged to assign risk levels primarily based on the incidence of deforestation and forest degradation.

The regulation also states the Commission “may” consider the “existence, compliance with, or effective enforcement of laws protecting human rights, the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities, and other customary tenure rights holders.” It is imperative that the Commission take human rights risks into account in their assessment – as we recently urged in a letter to the leadership of the Directorate General for Environment. In the letter, we raised critical questions that the Commission should seek to answer, such as whether there are laws requiring Indigenous peoples’ free, prior, and informed consent before granting a land lease or permitting business activities on Indigenous territories. I’ve worked in rainforest countries in South America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia, supporting forest peoples whose territories are under pressure. In all of them, the human rights risks were a powerful indicator of looming environmental devastation. When agribusiness operations pose a major risk to frontline forest communities, it should weigh on their reputation.

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EU Should Address Human Rights Risks to Achieve Deforestation-Free Supply Chains

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