Greenpeace Urges More EU Interventions on Palm-Oil Driven Deforestation

A European Commission report that  identifies beef, soy and palm oil as contributors to deforestation, has attracted criticism from Greenpeace, who have urged the EU to “break its silence” and take action, reports the FoodNavigator.com.   The report, written by Danish consulting group COWI A/S, outlines a package of EU interventions that tackle different aspects of the problem from supply and demand side drivers to the role of finance & investments. However, according to Greenpeace’s EU forest policy director Sebastien Risso, the interventions do not go far enough to address the situation adding that Europe had ignored its role in global deforestation for long enough.  
According to the EC, the European Union imported and consumed 7-10% of the global consumption of crops and livestock products associated with deforestation in the countries of origin.  This is equivalent to the import and consumption in the EU of a deforested land area of the size of Portugal over the period 1990-2008.  The EU is also among the major global importers of a number of specific commodities associated with deforestation, i.e. palm oil (17%).  Whilst acknowledging that the EU is part of the problem, the report thinks the region can be part of the solution.  It identities a series of actions that could act as a starting point to reduce or stop deforestation. 

The report also highlighted global demand for palm oil as one of the commodities driving legal and illegal deforestation and forest degradation.  The authors believed this was achieved partly through the permanent conversion of forestland into agriculture and pasture for the production of commodities.  Demand  is driven by increased food consumption, industrial uses (e.g. biofuels), and the livestock sector, according to the report.  Agricultural outlooks by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Food and  the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts a 23% expansion of oil seed production in 2011-2020 and a 45% rise in palm oil output, mainly by Indonesia and Malaysia.