"Forest and Rights Observatory" approach to help minimize the EU’s impact on deforestation in Brazil
The EUDR is a core component of the EU Green Deal that seeks to minimize the EU’s impact on deforestation by prohibiting companies from putting products on the EU market that are tainted with deforestation. The implementation of such a complex policy is a real challenge and must be considered from many aspects. Maria-Therese Gustafsson et al. puts forth the creation of a "Forest and Rights Observatory" as a way to support the implementation of EUDR in a new discussion paper.
To support EUDR implementation, the EU has committed to establish a Forest Observatory, focusing on deforestation, forest degradation, changes in the world’s forest cover, and associated drivers. Although the EUDR also requires companies to ensure that there are no violations of human rights and specifically land tenure rights in their supply chains, the EU Observatory is presently not expected to monitor human rights violations. The production of forest risk commodities is, however, often linked to a wide array of human rights violations, such as violations of the rights to land, water, food, a healthy environment, fair labour and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. However, compared to deforestation, data on such impacts is often missing, which could lead to deprioritize such important impacts when implementing the EUDR.
Against this background, researchers at Stockholm University and FAU University Erlangen-Nuremberg, joined a project led by the Brussel-based NGO Fern in 2022, to develop a pilot study and present recommendations to the EU on how a Forest and Rights Observatory could be established in order to complement the EU Forest Observatory. The Forest and Rights Observatory aims to help companies to carry out more adequate risk assessments and civil society actors to scrutinise companies’ impacts and responses to them as well as support Competent Authorities to enforce the EUDR.
The discussion paper builds on desk research, qualitative interviews, and insights from two stakeholder workshops with representatives from civil society organizations and state agencies in Brazil. The third stakeholder workshop aims to discuss a first pilot study and will be decisive for planning the next steps of this important initiative.
Read the discussion paper here
Last updated: April 12, 2024
Source: Department of Political Science