The European Union presented Wednesday, November 17 a draft legislation to ban the import of certain products promoting deforestation. Brazil and Indonesia are two countries affected by this problem. The countries targeted by this project are soybeans, timber, beef, cocoa, coffee and palm oil.
In Brazil, there is no political will to fight deforestation
Brazil is one of the countries affected by illegal deforestation. A large study published in 2020 found that 20% of the European Union’s imports come from illegally deforested land in the Amazon, but also in Cerrado, a kind of local savannah. While these are not the only ones responsible, it is above all the cultivation of soybeans and the breeding of oxen that are concerned. The main importers of Brazilian soybeans are the Netherlands, Spain, France and Germany. Beyond imports, European banks invest and lend, for example, to Brazilian meat giants, without having to legally carry out a prior check on the risk of deforestation.
Various environmental associations are already highlighting gaps in the text developed by the European Commission and regret that certain products are not included in the list. In the case of Brazil, there is, for example, leather, made from the hides of cattle. However, in this country, only 2% of the cattle herd is tracked individually, even though this system operates massively in other countries. In Brazil, only collective control is practiced, which is less effective and which makes fraud easier. Large companies therefore buy, more or less consciously, products from illegal deforestation.
It is very unlikely that this text will push Jair Bolsonaro to change his environmental policy in the short term. Globally, the all-powerful agro-industrial sector, mainly its most opportunistic and short-termist part, continues to support the Brazilian president. Even though the country has already been under a lot of international pressure, nothing has really changed. The costly deployment of the army on several occasions in the Amazon has done nothing to reduce deforestation. Conversely, environmental defense institutions have seen their actions sabotaged and their budgets slashed. Brazil already has a legislative arsenal that could be effective, but the government has no political will to tackle deforestation.
In Indonesia and Malaysia, we speak of “discrimination”
Indonesia and Malaysia produce 85% of the world’s palm oil. In the past, the measures taken by the European Union to sanction this industry have been extremely badly received and governments no longer hesitate to speak of “discrimination” or even go on the offensive. Thus, in 2019, the EU has decided that palm oil fuels should be phased out by 2030, as palm oil has been classified by the European Union as causing excessive deforestation. This decision has jumped Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, where palm oil is considered more of a “gift from God”, according to the Malaysian government’s slogan. To counter this decision, Malaysia obtained in January 2021 that the World Trade Organization (WTO) looks into what it considers to be discrimination.
To discredit the position of the European Union, some politicians, such as the Malaysian Prime Minister on a European tour before the pandemic, consider that Europe, which has hardly any primary forest, is a little bit saying “do this. that I am not saying what I do, ”when she mentions deforestation in Southeast Asia. The comparison made with other vegetable oils also comes up often in the speeches of manufacturers and officials. Indeed, when we compare the yield per hectare of different bio-fuels, palm oil remains the most efficient and less polluting production.
For their part, scientists and environmental NGOs criticize the speeches of the EU and those of local governments, for different reasons. The comparison with other vegetable oils is deemed irrelevant because it is above all the excess and the excesses of the palm oil industry that are condemned. NGOs and the press also regularly deplore the gap that may exist between scientific studies and government positions. So when NGOs cited studies pointing to palm oil as an aggravating factor in flooding in Borneo, ministers and lobbyists shouted at the fake news. Official data on deforestation are also suspected of being below reality.
About the EU, in a media article Mongabay, Yuyun Harmono of the Indonesian Environment Forum pointed to a certain divergence between the European Union’s severity on palm oil and its lack of interest in other problems, such as nickel mines. This industry is indeed just as bad for the environment but it is growing today in Indonesia, in particular because of the growing demand from the electric car industry.