Following EU elections, civil society outline necessary EU commitment to forests 2024-29
11 June 2024
Preliminary results from the EU elections, which took place from 6-9 June 2024, have delivered a notable decrease in green and liberal parties. It remains to be seen with whom von der Leyen will seek an alliance, but her choice will have decisive repercussions on key environmental and social protections.
In recent months, the European Green Deal has suffered significant blows. Certain protective initiatives were quietly dropped, while in other instances, policy incoherences were reinforced.
However, it is impossible to ignore that Europe’s forests are ailing, its carbon sinks collapsing under the weight of over-logging and climate change (FW 292). Unless we change this, the EU’s 2040 climate target to reduce net emissions by 90% is unattainable.
Against this backdrop, civil society organisations from 22 countries came together to make their recommendations for priority EU commitments for the next EU legislature. It is released just as the European Parliament is setting top conditions for backing the next Commission President.
The EU Forest Commitment 2024-29 can be found here, and comprises six recommendations:
1. Support fair reduction of European consumption of forest-harming products;
2. Fund a just, equitable and inclusive transition away from harmful forestry and farming;
3. Increase resilience, restoration and protection of European forests;
4. Support implementation and development of supply chain regulations;
5. Pursue partnerships with third countries that empower mutual action to tackle climate change, protect forests and promote democracy and good governance;
6. Protect and promote civic space.
A first opportunity to prioritise resilient forests:
Among the first opportunities to prioritise forests in the next EU legislature is the Council vote on the Nature Restoration Law, scheduled 17 June. The vote is a crucial occasion to reinforce the position adopted in trilogues, and by Parliament in late February (FW 293) to take concrete steps to restore and preserve at least 20% of the EU’s degraded habitat by 2030, to shift industrial forestry away from devastating clearcut-replant cycles, and to demonstrate progress by measuring and reporting on a selection of forest-health indicators; foresters have indicated their support. This is critical to ensuring the EU has any credibility at the sixteenth multilateral Conference on Biological Diversity, CBD COP16, to be held in Columbia in October.
The political shift towards the right will have noticeable impacts on how we work together to create environmental, climate, and forest policy. But we must not lose sight of the fact that these are issues that confront us all; by affecting jobs, vulnerable communities, and society’s wellbeing, they cut across the political spectrum. Climate, environment and forests are therefore also potentially issues that unify, and civil society will need to concentrate harder on finding allies – both public and private, within the EU and abroad – to focus our efforts where we find common ground.
Categories: News, Forest Watch
