On 11 July 2022, at the 5th Ad-Hoc Working Group Meeting, a representative from the European Delegation to Thailand gave the first briefing on the regulation on deforestation-free products to Thailand government agencies and FLEGT VPA stakeholders.
Background of the regulation on deforestation-free products
The legislative proposal was conceived from the findings of the EUTR and FLEGT Fitness Check, which pointed out that only ensuring the legality of wood products is not enough to curb deforestation since it does not take into account one of the major activities that drive deforestation, forest conversion for agricultural use.
With the overwhelming support from the 27 EU member states and popular international public consultation, the draft regulation on deforestation-free products was announced in 2020 and submitted to the European Parliament for deliberation.
The regulation states that only products from the 6 commodities that are deforestation-free, comply with the law of the producing countries, and are covered by due diligence declaration, can be placed in or exported from the EU market.
Forest Partnership as the bilateral cooperation in the context of the regulation on deforestation-free products
To support producing countries in their endeavor to stop deforestation, the producing countries and the EU can form a “Forest Partnership.” The EU will support producing countries in their transition into the new regulation and promote the production and trade of deforestation-free products. Taking a holistic approach to the new partnership, producing countries will have the opportunity to discover and work with the EU to halt deforestation.
Building on the success of FLEGT
As the model partnership between the EU and producing countries to combat deforestation, lessons learned from FLEGT VPA, like the multi-stakeholder participatory process and the development of the legality assurance system, would be reflected and modeled after in the next chapter of Thailand – EU partnership.
For more information on the regulation on deforestation-free products: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-regulation-deforestation-free-products_en
