Julia Christian

France’s new food strategy targets ready-made meals and increased plant-based consumption

France has published its long-awaited National Strategy for Food, Nutrition and Climate (SNANC), which sets targets for the French food sector to achieve by 2030. It lays out policies that the French government will further...

4 mars 2026

EU Vision on Agriculture and Food: the Commission ignores consensus from last year’s dialogues

The European Commission released its Vision for Agriculture and Food on 19 February 2025, brushing aside the thoughtful work of a months-long multi-stakeholder dialogue that the Commission convened a year ago. Although the Vision...

5 mars 2025

Blueprint for an EU Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods

Proposed measures to unlock the full potential of the plant-based sector

In January 2025, 130+ organisations called on the European Commission to propose an Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods by 2026, as  recommended by the...

30 juin 2025

Position paper on the evaluation of Directive (EU) 2019/633 regarding Unfair Trading Practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain

In this position paper, we join Oxfam, Fair Trade International, the European Milk Board and 14 other organisations calling for the EU to ban a series of unfair trading practices (UTP) in the agricultural and food sector,...

1 septembre 2025

Open letter from NGOs to the Delegates of COP30

In an open letter to the Delegates of the 30th United Nations climate conference (COP30), 49 NGOs from all around the globe highlight the crucial role that Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities play in...

7 novembre 2025

What the outcome of Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture means for forests

On 4 September 2024, the European Commission published the results of its Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture, an innovative exercise that, in a period of bitter strife, gathered farm lobby groups and NGOs around a...

18 septembre 2024

US anti-deforestation framework: the right move, but where will it go next?

On 17 December 2024, the outgoing Biden-Harris administration unveiled a comprehensive six-point policy framework aimed at reducing US imports of products linked to deforestation – a commendable attempt to set positive things in...

17 janvier 2025

Corporate Due Diligence proposal could improve access to justice, but contains fundamental weaknesses

Under the long-awaited proposed Due Diligence Directive, the majority of EU companies need not change a thing.

4 mars 2022

As the first round of EU-Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire Cocoa Talks wraps up, the way ahead is still unclear

The EU, Ghana & Cote d’Ivoire must commit to concrete actions when talks resume after autumn 2021.

14 juillet 2021

What to expect when you’re forest campaigning: Upcoming EU Forest policy developments

Julia Christian, Fern’s host of the Forest Movement Europe 

If it weren’t for the pandemic, this week would have seen forest activists from across Europe getting together in southern France to celebrate 30+ years of the Forest...

14 juin 2021

The EU's watershed deforestation moment?

This week Ursula von der Leyen signalled the EU’s desire to lead the world in the fight against global deforestation. But if the key drivers of deforestation aren’t addressed, progress will remain limited.

Until...

13 janvier 2021

In 2021 the EU’s policy choices will shape the fate of the world’s forests

Last year changed everything, and nothing. 

Almost overnight our lives were upended: businesses and economies ground to a halt, movement was constrained, and physical contact with others curbed. Yet our greatest challenge – the...

5 janvier 2021

Éléments clés pour un accord entre l’UE et les pays producteurs de cacao, afin de garantir la durabilité dans le secteur du cacao

La Commission européenne étudie actuellement la possibilité de conclure des accords bilatéraux avec les gouvernements du Ghana et de la Côte d’Ivoire afin d’assurer la durabilité du secteur du cacao, notamment en luttant contre la...

22 septembre 2020

The COVID recovery plan for Europe: Why MEPs are our last chance to make it work for the climate

The €1.8 trillion pandemic recovery plan and long-term budget deal agreed by EU heads of government on 21 July 2020, after nearly five days of haggling, is widely seen as a political and economic landmark. But from an...

30 juillet 2020

Cocoa update: farmers in West Africa could benefit from higher cocoa prices; calls intensify for EU regulation

Companies will back producer countries’ bold move to raise cocoa prices, and are also showing support for EU regulation.

13 novembre 2019

Support solidifies for an EU Due Diligence Regulation

Now comes the task of separating the wheat (value chain and market access measures) from the chaff (labels).

13 novembre 2019

Chocolate companies and MEPs call for EU due diligence regulation

Chocolate companies and the European Parliament are on the same page when it comes to corporate due diligence.

10 avril 2019

EU consumption of cocoa and deforestation

Cocoa consumption is a major cause of deforestation – estimated to have destroyed an area of forest the size of Belgium between 1988 and 2008.

Other problems include endemic use of child labour, local tenure conflicts, and...

14 février 2018

Cocoa: why the European Union must act now to eliminate deforestation and child labour from the chocolate we love

European countries are the world’s largest importers of the cocoa beans whose production is devastating rainforests in West Africa and driving millions of children into child labour. To prevent this, chocolate companies and NGOs...

5 mai 2020

Virgin Atlantic: A small victory in a bigger battle

Controversy has long plagued the Oddar Meanchey carbon offset project in Cambodia.

Solid evidence has been in the public domain for years that forests supposed to be protected by the project—which has been backed by the United...

12 janvier 2018

While climate change wreaks havoc, airlines hide plans to double emissions behind a widely discredited scheme.

In Bonn last month delegates from around the world discussed how to implement the Paris Climate Change Agreement  – which aims to tackle the greatest threat currently facing the planet.

At exactly the same time almost 6,000...

1 décembre 2017

Blog: Aviation industrys carbon offsetting plans keep flying into trouble

Keeping global warming below 1.5°C - which the Paris Agreement strives to – means fundamental changes for industries from energy to transport. Yet the aviation sector - one of the planet’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2)...

18 octobre 2017

Lessons learned from community forests in Mexico and Guatemala, to benefit community forest work in West and Central Africa

This paper summarises Fern staff member Julia Christian's lessons from studying community forestry in Mexico and Petén (Guatemala), from March-July 2016, hosted by the Mexican non-governmental organisation Reforestamos. To see a...

10 juillet 2017