The European Parliament adopted a new EU law on Wednesday that will ban imports deemed to be driving deforestation, throwing the bloc's trade muscle behind a global fight against climate change.
The legislation, which has to get final approval from the European Union's member countries, would apply to coffee, cocoa, soy, timber, palm oil, cattle, printing paper and rubber, and derived products, coming from countries around the world.
Imports that come from land that was deforested after December 31, 2020, will be prohibited in the huge EU market.
Companies sending such merchandise to Europe will have to show a certificate guaranteeing they do not come from such zones, with checks conducted on a sliding scale according to how high risk the exporting country is ranked.
The European Union is the second-biggest market for consumption of the targeted products after China.
The European Parliament estimates Europe is responsible for around 10 per cent of deforestated land around the planet.
Illegal production has spurred massive deforestation in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mexico and Guatemala.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that an aggregate area of land bigger than the European Union, or some 420 million hectares (more than one billion acres), has been deforested around the world over the past three decades.
The EU legislation is "the first law in the world that will bring about the end of imported deforestation," one MEP, Pascal Canfin, said during debate of the measure late Monday.
"All the studies show Europeans don't want to contribute to deforestation, but they aren't able to know – when they take their cup of coffee in the morning or a mug of hot chocolate – that in fact they are accomplices to imported deforestation," he said.
All the studies show Europeans don't want to contribute to deforestation, but they aren't able to know – when they take their cup of coffee in the morning or a mug of hot chocolate – that in fact they are accomplices to imported deforestation- MEP Pascal Canfin
Environmental campaign groups hailed the incoming law as a good first step but said more needed to be done.
"It needs the final piece of the puzzle: the European Commission must now urgently deliver a new law that would stop banks from funding deforestation," said Giulia Bondi, an EU forests campaigner at the non-governmental organisation Global Witness.