Publications & Insight

Briefing Notes

The EU Forest Manifesto

A call for political groups, candidates for the European elections

and EU leaders to support forests and forest peoples in their

manifestos.

11/09/2018

Briefing Notes

From CETA to JEEPA - THE VARIATIONS IN THE "TRADE & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" provisions in EU Free Trade Agreements

Since the debates around the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations and the ratification of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade (CETA) Agreement, it has become clear that a new approach is...

07/09/2018

Briefing Notes

Protect and restore: How forests can help the European Union tackle climate change

The struggle against climate change must also be a battle to protect and restore land and forests.

Fern’s new briefing Protect and Restore sets out a clear path to help the EU achieve this, by increasing the amount of carbon...

10/07/2018

Briefing Notes

Learning lessons from FLEGT-VPA to promote governance reform in Ghana’s cocoa sector

Cocoa is crucial to Ghana’s economy, but is also a significant driver of deforestation. The Ghana National REDD+ Strategy identifies agricultural expansion to be responsible for at least 50 per cent of deforestation, with cocoa a...

10/07/2018

Briefing Notes

Making soft laws enforceable: How the EU can use human rights guidelines to fight agricultural deforestation

The purpose of this discussion paper, which draws on a detailed Fern report as well as an analysis we will soon be publishing, is to show the contours of a way forward. We intend it to start the conversation about how regulatory...

25/06/2018

Briefing Notes

EU consumption of beef and deforestation

Cattle and deforestation

Beef production is the biggest agricultural driver of global forest loss. Forests in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, all members of the Mercosur trade bloc, are being destroyed on an epic scale to make...

26/05/2018

Briefing Notes

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...

14/02/2018

Briefing Notes

Snake oil or climate cure - The effect of public funding on European bioenergy

If European Union targets are met, by the year 2020, 20 per cent of the EU’s energy consumption will come from renewable sources. In an attempt to achieve this target, the EU is investing heavily in new sources of energy,...

08/12/2017

Briefing Notes

How the EU Governance Regulation can help achieve negative emissions

This briefing explains that there is effectively only one realistic and sustainable way to remove large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere (negative emissions): forests.With much of Europe’s land already taken up...

23/10/2017

Briefing Notes

Bioenergy in the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive

The European Parliament is currently discussing the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) which will determine how biomass can be used for energy towards meeting the EU’s renewable energy target and minimum...

28/09/2017