U.S. civil society groups urge EU not to cave in to U.S. pressure on deforestation law

Today EIA and 11 other U.S. civil society organizations conveyed a letter to the European Commission urging them to hold firm against U.S. pressure to delay or weaken the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The EUDR is a groundbreaking law passed in 2023 to help address global deforestation. It prohibits agricultural commodities such as beef, leather, palm oil, soy, cocoa and timber produced through deforestation or severe forest degradation from being placed on the EU market. 

The date the law will come into effect was delayed by one year, to the end of 2025, but its requirements are already incentivizing companies and governments around the world to take concrete steps to improve commodity traceability and remove deforestation from supply chains and production. More and more major companies and commodity traders have announced they are ready to comply. Lawmakers in other jurisdictions are also taking notice. State lawmakers in New York and Illinois, for example, are trying to put in place complementary measures to promote deforestation-free supply chains through public procurement standards.

Despite this progress, the U.S. government and forest industry lobby, led by the American Forest and Paper Association, have ramped up efforts to further delay and weaken the law, saying it is too onerous and U.S. forestry practices warrant an exemption (see, for example, paragraph 10 of a recent Joint Statement on U.S.-EU trade talks). In the face of unprecedented rollbacks to forest protections here in the U.S., we are calling on the European Commission to resist pressure and ensure the EUDR comes into effect at the end of the year. Healthy, intact forests are crucial for global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss, and the threats to the world’s forests have never been greater. We can’t afford to wait any longer for the full benefits of the EUDR to be realized.