How a New EU Regulation Can Reduce Deforestation Globally

The European Union has proposed a regulation to prevent commodities linked to deforestation and forest degradation from entering its market. While the author views the draft as an ambitious step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting biodiversity, they identify four critical areas for improvement: clarifying definitions of 'forest' and 'agricultural use', expanding the scope to include rubber and other ecosystems like peatlands, increasing transparency through public disclosure of company declarations, and implementing targeted supply-side engagement to protect smallholder producers.

• The proposed EU regulation targets all deforestation and degradation, not just illegal activities, aiming to reduce the EU's international footprint on forests and consequently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Current definitions in the draft regulation are ambiguous regarding 'forest' and 'agricultural use', which may allow the conversion of natural forests into monoculture timber plantations to go unrecognized as deforestation.
• The regulation covers six commodities—palm oil, soy, cattle, cocoa, coffee, and wood—but excludes rubber, despite rubber replacing at least 2 million hectares of forest between 2001 and 2015, a level of impact similar to cocoa or coffee.
• Effective enforcement of the regulation requires increased transparency, including the collection of geographic coordinates for sourced land and the public disclosure of non-confidential information from company declarations to allow for independent oversight.
• To prevent smallholder producers from being excluded from the market, the EU should employ supply-side engagement strategies, such as bilateral agreements, financial and technical support, and multistakeholder processes to clarify land use planning.

APA

Nogueron, R., & Vallee, M. (2022). How a New EU Regulation Can Reduce Deforestation Globally. World Resources Institute. https://www.wri.org/insights/eu-deforestation-regulation

Chicago

Nogueron, Ruth, and Marie Vallee. How a New EU Regulation Can Reduce Deforestation Globally. World Resources Institute, 2022. https://www.wri.org/insights/eu-deforestation-regulation.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Nogueron |first1=Ruth |last2=Vallee |first2=Marie |title=How a New EU Regulation Can Reduce Deforestation Globally |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=5 April 2022 |url=https://www.wri.org/insights/eu-deforestation-regulation |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{nogueron2022how, author = {Nogueron, Ruth and Vallee, Marie}, title = {{How a New EU Regulation Can Reduce Deforestation Globally}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2022}, month = apr, url = {https://www.wri.org/insights/eu-deforestation-regulation}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }