European regulations | A project to regulate deforestation worries Ottawa

Canada opposes proposed European Union regulations aimed at preventing the sale of products that contribute to the destruction of the forests from which they come. And this, at a time when Montreal is hosting the United Nations conference on the protection of biodiversity.

Meat, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya, corn, wood or even printed papers sold in European Union countries should not come from deforested or degraded land, under the proposed regulations.

The text, however, upsets Ottawa, which in November transmitted its “concerns and proposals” to various European representatives, in a letter signed by the Canadian ambassador to the European Union, Ailish Campbell.

The proposed regulations would result in additional costs and “painful traceability requirements” for Canadian companies, laments the ambassador, who points out that Canadian exports of forest and agricultural products to the European Union in 2021 exceeded one billion dollars.

Ottawa is opposed in particular to the proposal to require companies to provide for verification purposes the geolocation coordinates indicating the origin of a product, and proposes instead that it be only required to indicate the region of origin of the product.

M^me Campbell also calls in his letter for the regulations to be applied gradually over several years, starting with a limited number of products with simple supply chains.

It also demands that the European Union delay the entry into force of the requirements relating specifically to forest degradation, arguing that there is currently no internationally recognized definition on this subject.

“Ridiculous” Arguments

Ambassador Ailish Campbell writes in her letter that Canada supports the goals that the European Union is pursuing and shares its desire to prevent deforestation, adding that Canada is a “world leader” in forest management, with a deforestation less than 0.02%.

“This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard,” exclaims Shane Moffatt, Nature and Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada.

“It’s degradation the problem, not deforestation,” he says, asserting that “everyone who knows the subject knows that Canada has a problem of degradation of forests, which lose their essential ecological functions”.

The decline of caribou due to habitat degradation is a prime example, says Moffatt, who believes that if Canada were a role model as he claims, it would want to show it to the world and would not oppose the requirement to geolocate the origin of its products.

The request to delay the entry into force of the regulations is “completely unjustified”, continues the ecologist.

“Why ask for slower action? It’s exactly the opposite that we need,” says Moffatt.

“It seems to suggest that some poor countries have to make an effort when Canada can continue to work as usual,” he says, believing that Canada is “really hypocritical” with this position, at the time where it hosts the United Nations conference on the protection of biodiversity.

A final day of talks on the proposed regulations are due to be held on Monday between the European Parliament, made up of MEPs, and the Council of the European Union, made up of member country government ministers, after which the two bodies are expected to adopt the regulations each. for their part, in the coming months, specified to The Press Thomas Haahr, European Parliament press officer.

The office of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, did not call back The Press.