News

The Governance Regulation: well done, now do more

The EU has agreed on a long-term goal of achieving “negative emissions” – pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere than it puts in. The decision was made on 20 June 2018, when the European Parliament and Council provisionally...

11/07/2018

Global South activists in Brussels to demand EU action on deforestation

Indigenous leaders and human rights activists from Liberia, Indonesia, Ghana, Colombia and Democratic Republic of Congo came to Brussels 29 June 2018 to deliver a petition. Signed by 164,000 people, the petition urges European...

11/07/2018

Will Indonesia’s Sustainability Impact Assessment inform trade negotiations?

On 5 June 2018, the European Commission organised a civil society dialogue to discuss the upcoming Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIAs) that are intended to inform EU trade negotiations with Indonesia, Malaysia and the...

11/07/2018

Future of tropical forests: Time for a paradigm shift

Ten years after the introduction of REDD+, what is there to celebrate? What challenges remain? At the Oslo Tropical Forest Summit on 27-28 June 2018, key forest stakeholders explored these questions. The flurry of discussions left...

11/07/2018

France calls on EU to follow its forest lead

The French Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition has called for EU-wide measures to halt deforestation in supply chains. Ms Brune Poirson made the statement in June 2018, as France handed...

11/07/2018

Blogs

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...

10/07/2018

Blogs

People power: Estonians show how to bring about change

Concerned residents of Tartu, Estonia, have pulled off a rare victory: Estonia’s government has announced it will end the national planning procedure for a proposed “biorefinery” (pulp mill) developed by Est-For Invest OU (FW 235)...

10/07/2018

Press Releases

Indigenous leaders and human rights defenders demand urgent EU action on deforestation

Indigenous leaders and human rights activists from Liberia, Indonesia and Colombia will come to Brussels on June 29 to deliver a petition signed by 156 000+ people urging European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to uphold...

28/06/2018

Press Releases

Voluntary corporate commitments no substitute for government action against illegal forest destruction, study reveals

A new report released today by Fern and Forest Trends finds that the onus is on governments in both forested and consumer countries to halt the trade...

26/06/2018

Blogs

Politics trumps science as EU lays out its renewable energy future

The EU’s new bioenergy policy is driven by vested interests not evidence, writes Linde Zuidema.

“I want the European Union to become the world number one in renewables,” Jean-Claude Juncker declared in January 2014.

This grand...

21/06/2018