Perrine Fournier

The EU-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Investment Protection Agreements

What are they, and what do they mean for forests and peoples?

Last September, the EU and Indonesia signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and an Investment Protection Agreement (IPA) concluding nine years of...

2 avril 2026

The EU-Indonesia trade and investments deals: Risks and opportunities for forests and peoples

On 23 April, Fern hosted a webinar analysing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and Investment Protection Agreement (IPA) between the EU and Indonesia, signed in September 2025 after nine years of...

23 avril 2026

Indonesia takes a turn for the worse – but will the EU go along with it?

In today’s Indonesia, civic space is restricted, and violence against environmental and human rights defenders is soaring. And so is deforestation, surging 66% in 2025 compared to the previous year. But the EU could use the...

13 mai 2026

A critical threat

In Finnish Lapland, an ecosystem that’s evolved over thousands of years is threatened with destruction for the short-term needs of the car, defence and AI industries. Now the Sakatti mine has moved a step closer to opening, and environmental defenders in Finland are mobilising, writes Perrine Fournier.

3 juin 2026

Zones soumises à des restrictions de l’activité minière

La ruée vers les matières premières essentielles nécessaires à la transition énergétique, à la numérisation, à l’essor de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) et au secteur militaire constitue une menace pour les forêts naturelles et...

23 juin 2026

Resisting the ravages of mining

Nickel is a key component in EV batteries, and Indonesia has the greatest reserves of it on earth. But extracting it in Kabaena island - where mining companies have been granted licences to 73% of the territory - is destroying...

13 décembre 2024

EVs and critical minerals: Adjusting early could serve commercial and public interests

For the first time, new research models the potential deforestation that EU demand for electric vehicles (EVs) could cause through to 2050.

The findings are startling: on current trajectories, EU hunger for the minerals EVs...

8 mai 2025

Press release: EU-Indonesia trade agreement will perpetuate social and environmental injustice

Brussels, 23 September, 2025  – Today’s free trade agreement between the EU and Indonesia is a win for transnational companies at the expense of forests and vulnerable peoples.  

After nine years of negotiations, Indonesia and...

23 septembre 2025

The EU-Indonesia CEPA places trade before social and environmental justice

Despite long-standing concerns and warnings, in September 2025, the EU Commission and Government of Indonesia signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the product of nearly a decade of negotiations. Given the...

15 octobre 2025

The Clean Energy Transition in the DRC

Opportunities and Challenges of the Lobito Corridor Initiative

As the European Union deepens its engagement in Africa’s critical raw material value chains, the Lobito Corridor Initiative has emerged as a flagship Global Gateway...

20 novembre 2025

Mining in the Arctic: a critical threat

The EU is scrambling to secure the critical raw materials needed for the energy transition and defense. But in Finnish Lapland this quest threatens to destroy precious habitats and traditional livelihoods, as Perrine Fournier, Anna Muižniece and Dhany Alfalah discover.

8 décembre 2025

Nickel mining for electric vehicles is destroying lives in Indonesia

Indonesia’s abundant nickel reserves are crucial for a low carbon world. But extracting them is ruining local peoples’ lives and causing rampant deforestation

9 décembre 2024

EUDR: Looking beyond the canopy to consider the human aspects of trade

While trade partners and companies are asking to delay implementation of the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), Indonesian NGOs have been organising themselves to engage in its application. More than 30...

9 juillet 2024

EUDR could throw a welcome lifeline to a high-risk Malaysian state

Since the EU’s adoption of the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR) in late 2022, the Malaysian Government and others have pushed back, ostensibly over the impact that the Regulation could have on smallholders....

11 juin 2024

International Resource Panel pushes reduced resource use; new EU law triggers a ‘goldrush’

“Reducing the resource intensity of food, mobility, housing and energy systems is the best and only way of achieving the SDGs, the climate goals, and ultimately a just and liveable planet for all”, says the UN Environment...

2 avril 2024

Fern position on the EU-Mercosur agreement

This EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement will increase trade in the agricultural products that are the main drivers of deforestation in South America. This is opposite of what needs to happen for the EU to achieve its commitments to...

27 janvier 2021

Pushing EU trade in the right direction?

Perrine Fournier analyses the French-Dutch call for making trade more sustainable in EU free trade agreements.

20 mai 2020

Indonesia’s response to coronavirus threatens to increase illegal logging

Perrine Fournier explains how the EU should react.

27 avril 2020

The proposed Mercosur deal throws fuel on the Amazon fires

Hope remains: the deal can still be rejected, as a first step toward requiring that companies and consumers do better.

18 septembre 2019

Long road to legality

Abandoning the timber trade deal between the EU and Vietnam would derail the fight against illegal logging, says Perrine Fournier

6 décembre 2018

Draft Decree of Vietnam’s timber legality system lacks teeth says the Vietnamese NGO FLEGT network

Vietnam’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) is designed to end the illegal timber trade by tackling its root causes. At its heart is a commitment to adopt a robust timber legality assurance system,...

11 juillet 2019

Les forêts et les peuples forestiers dans les accords de libre-échange de l’Union européenne

L’Union européenne (UE) a pris des engagements fermes en vue d’atténuer le changement climatique, de mettre fin à la déforestation et de veiller au respect des droits humains, y compris les droits fonciers des communautés. 

Ce...

20 octobre 2018

Vietnam VPA at a milestone as it receives government approval

Guest Blog by Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) Vietnam

25 avril 2019

Les racines du changement – Actualité des APV, juin 2018

Il y a un an, le programme politique de l’Union européenne remettait les forêts et leur rôle écologique et économique crucial à l’ordre du jour. En juin 2017, lors de la conférence de l’UE sur la déforestation et l’exploitation...

10 juin 2018

Un an après la mise en place des licences FLEGT - Actualité des APV, novembre 2017

LoggingOff et Fern publient une publication bi-mensuelle Forest Watch Special – Actualité des APV traitant des événements qui ont marqué les pays signataires ou en négociation d’un Accord de Partenariat Volontaire avec l’Union...

15 novembre 2017

Could EU-Indonesia free trade deal end palm oil conundrum?

As a new round of free trade negotiations between the European Union and Indonesia begins in Brussels, improving forest governance should be central to any agreement.

Palm oil has had a lot of bad press. Shocked by numerous land...

10 juillet 2018

Deep in Denial

When the head of the WTO says trade does not impact the environment we should all be worried.

5 février 2019

Mercosur: Don’t sacrifice our food standards and tropical forests for trade

The trade agreement currently being negotiated by the EU and Mercosur will increase deforestation and accelerate the demise of European farmers by subjecting them to unfair competition, argue Perrine Fournier and Yannick Jadot.

A...

7 juin 2018

The EU’s trade challenge

The international trading system is facing a crisis – but protectionism isn’t the biggest test EU leaders must deal with.

27 novembre 2018

EU-Japan free trade deal threatens the fight for legal timber

While moves towards greater international cooperation are welcome, the EU’s growing number of new free trade deals must be scrutinised. And in the case of the Japan-EU free trade agreement, the deal’s impact on the fight against...

12 septembre 2018

Sacrificing South America’s forests on the altar of EU market access

The first trade talks between the European Union and the Mercosur bloc of nations - Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – began almost 20 years ago. Since then they have stuttered through 28 rounds of negotiations, but this...

12 octobre 2017

Blog: Trading in incoherence? EU trade policy needs improving to give forests, communities and the climate a fair chance

When it comes to global trade, it is difficult to overestimate the EU’s importance. It is the world’s second largest importer (after the US), and the second largest exporter (after China), and has an overall share of world trade...

26 juin 2017