Canada opposes proposed European Union (EU) regulations aimed at preventing the sale of products that contribute to the destruction of the forests they come from. And this at a time when Montreal is hosting the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity.
Posted yesterday at 5:00am
Meat, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, corn, timber or even printed paper sold in EU countries should not come from deforested or degraded land, according to the proposed regulations.
The text, however, angered Ottawa, which in November conveyed its “concerns and suggestions” to various European officials in a letter signed by Canada’s ambassador to the EU, Ailish Campbell.
We are very concerned about certain elements of the European Union’s draft regulations on deforestation-free products that will create significant trade barriers for Canadian companies exporting to the European Union.
Ailish Campbell, Canadian Ambassador to the European Union, in a letter to the EU
The proposed rules would result in additional costs and “onerous traceability requirements” for Canadian companies, the ambassador laments, noting that Canadian exports of forest and agricultural products to the EU surpassed $1 billion in 2021.
Ottawa specifically opposes the proposal to require companies to provide geolocation coordinates to indicate a product’s origin for verification purposes, proposing instead to only require the indication of the product’s region of origin.
Ms Campbell’s letter also calls for the regulations to be phased in over several years, starting with a limited number of products with simple supply chains.
She also calls on the EU to delay the entry into force of specific requirements on forest degradation as there is currently no internationally recognized definition on the subject.
“Ridiculous” arguments
Ambassador Ailish Campbell wrote in her letter that Canada supports the EU’s goals and shares its desire to prevent deforestation, adding that Canada is a “world leader” in forest management with a deforestation rate of less than 0.02% .
“That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard,” exclaims Shane Moffatt, conservationist at Greenpeace Canada.
“The problem is degradation, not deforestation,” he says, claiming that “anyone in the know knows that Canada has a problem of degrading forests that are losing their essential ecological functions.”
The decline in 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 the world and not oppose the requirement to trace the origin of its caribou to geolocate products.
If the government really believed Canada was a world leader, which it isn’t, it should encourage transparency.
Shane Moffatt, Greenpeace Canada
The demand to delay the entry into force of the regulations was “completely unjustified”, the ecologist continued.
“Why ask for slower action? We need the exact opposite,” says Moffatt.
“It seems to suggest that if Canada can continue to operate as usual, some poor countries will have to make an effort,” he says, believing Canada was “really hypocritical” with that position at the time it was hosting the United Nations conference be the protection of biodiversity.
A final day of negotiations on the proposed regulations is due to take place on Monday between the European Parliament, made up of MPs, and the Council of the EU, made up of ministers from member countries’ governments, after which the two bodies are expected to adopt the regulations each their own Page, in the coming months, European Parliament press secretary Thomas Haahr told La Presse.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s office did not call La Presse back.
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10% Share of global deforestation attributable to European consumption
Source: European Parliament