The Need for Sustainable Forests & EUDR
Emmanuel Joseph Ambadipudi
Experienced Information Technology Consultant & International Trade Advisor promoting Innovation & Impact.
Forest, why do we need them?
Forests provide essential benefits including carbon storage, climate regulation, biodiversity support, and resources crucial for daily life. However, exploitation of these advantages has led to widespread damage and indiscriminate use, resulting in serious threats like climate change, global warming, wildfires, and floods that displace millions. Additionally, ongoing deforestation and biodiversity loss have had severe impacts on wildlife and entire ecosystems.
Despite forests offering clean air, water, food, and medicinal resources, human actions driven by ignorance, selfish motives, and greed are leading to their destruction. This trend distances us from living harmoniously with nature and jeopardizes the diverse biodiversity that forests sustain. Globally, we deforest around ten million hectares of forest every year. That is an area the size of Portugal every year. Around half of this deforestation is offset by regrowing forests, so overall; we lose around five million hectares each year.
The Importance of Forest
Around 10 million people are employed in forest management and Conservation – but many more are directly dependent on forests for their livelihoods. Human dependence on Forests and the fate of forests directly impacts human survival.
? - 1.6 billion people rely on forests for food and fuel.
? - 70 million people, including Indigenous communities, live in forests.
? - Forests provide oxygen, shelter, jobs, water, nourishment, and fuel.
? - Prevent erosion and conserve soil.
? - Protect communities from landslides and floods.
? - Produce rich topsoil needed for plants and crops.
? - Play a crucial role in the global water cycle by releasing water vapor and capturing rainfall.
? - Filter out pollution and chemicals, improving water quality.
? - Destruction of forests affects food production.
? - Deforestation increases the risk of diseases spreading from animals to humans.
? - Forest health affects those living in both rural and urban areas.
? - Time spent in forests benefits cardiovascular health, respiratory concerns, diabetes, and mental health.
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2. For Nature
? - Forests are home to over 80% of terrestrial biodiversity.
? - They include 80% of amphibians, 75% of birds, and 68% of mammals.
? - Deforestation of tropical forests could result in the loss of up to 100 species a day.
? - Preventing biodiversity loss is heavily dependent on stopping forest loss.
? - Deforestation causes entire ecosystems to fall apart.
? - Forests provide habitats for plants and animals, including iconic species like tigers, giant pandas, gorillas, and orangutans.
? - Habitat loss is a main cause of biodiversity loss, as forests are cleared for other uses.
? - Forest-dwelling wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69% since 1970.
? - Tropical forests, like the Amazon, are the worst hit by habitat loss.
3. For Climate
? - Forests are the largest carbon storehouses after oceans.
? - They absorb and lock away carbon, reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
? - Deforestation releases significant carbon emissions, contributing to the climate crisis.
? - Forests help protect people and nature from climate change impacts, such as floods and storms from rising sea levels and increased precipitation.
? - They provide a crucial buffer for communities against extreme weather events.
? - Extreme events like wildfires, intensified by climate change, limit forests' ability to regenerate.
? - Deforestation exacerbates climate change by increasing fire risks.
? - Stopping deforestation and restoring forests are essential for effective climate action.
Effective policies are crucial but timing is everything
Forests are highly valued not only for their traditional products but also for their environmental benefits and daily amenities. Due to their importance, various policies and regulations have been introduced to prevent businesses from exploiting these resources without proper oversight. While these policies aim to promote sustainability, their slow implementation and lack of coordination among stakeholders and players have raised concerns about their effectiveness and efficiency in delivering the overall objectives.
This poses an enormous amount of pressure to meet enforcement deadlines and readiness among partners, policymakers, stakeholders, and the supply chain. It could affect the effectiveness and practicality of policies, potentially hindering their ability to achieve intended impacts if enforcement timing is misaligned to its desired outcomes.
Timely action is essential to mitigate imminent and existing threats and ensure sustainable management of our natural resources.
A wide range of EU policies and initiatives are linked to forests and the ecosystem services they provide, including biodiversity and climate change mitigation. This is already recognized in the:
a)???? EU Forest Strategy 2023,
c)???? The EU Natural Restoration Law and
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EU Forest Strategy 2023
Objectives
As specified in the EU forest strategy for 2030, the EU aims to
·?????? protect forests and the value of the many ecosystem services they provide
·?????? plant at least 3 billion additional trees in the EU by 2030
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·?????? contribute to a modern, climate-neutral, resource-efficient and competitive economy
·?????? preserve lively rural areas and help maintain wealthy rural populations
·?????? ensure that products consumed in the EU do not contribute to global deforestation
It is critical to address these policies due to the growing vulnerability of forests. Monitoring their sustainability, growth, and regrowth is essential to combat deforestation and degradation. Illegal logging and deforestation, compounded by natural challenges like droughts, wildfires, and diseases, pose significant threats to forest cover. Hence, launching effective policies regularly and at regular intervals is crucial to mitigate these risks and safeguard the long-term health of forests.
The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)
The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), introduced in June 2023, is an example of such a policy aimed at addressing deforestation and its impacts. The EU is countering the trade in illegally harvested timber and timber products by prohibiting the entry into the EU market of illegally harvested timber and requiring EU traders who place timber products on the EU market for the first time to exercise 'due diligence'.
The EU's Regulation on deforestation-free products (Regulation (EU) 2023/1115), effective from December 30, 2024, underscores a growing demand for sustainable and legally produced goods in consumer markets. It mandates that imported commodities like timber must be deforestation-free, comply with local legislation, and be accompanied by a 'due diligence statement'. FLEGT-licensed timber meets legality requirements, but EU operators must ensure it is deforestation-free. The Regulation applies to imports, exports, and domestic production within the EU. Today, close to 75 percent of the world’s forests are now covered by national forest programs.
EUDR Risk Classification
? - Assigns regions within countries as low, standard, or high-risk for deforestation and forest degradation.
? - Guides obligations for operators and authorities in member states, simplifying due diligence processes.
Inspection Requirements
? - Authorities must inspect 9% of operators from high-risk regions, 3% from standard-risk, and 1% from low-risk regions to ensure compliance with regulations.
? - Inspections also cover 9% of relevant goods and products from high-risk regions placed on the market or exported.
Cooperation with Partner Countries
? - EU plans to enhance cooperation with partner countries, focusing on high-risk areas to improve enforcement and compliance with regulations.
The Sooner the Better; as we might see signs of bigger changes effective January 2025.
- Global deforestation rates will begin to decline.
- Forest areas allocated for biological diversity conservation will increase.
- Legal forest cover globally will expand.
- Expansion of forest areas dedicated to soil and water protection.
- Advancements in developing frameworks that promote sustainable forest management.
- Illegal trade of timber is set to find its end and so will the loss of trees to deforestation.
EU’s commitment to tackling with illegal trade of Timber
Given the dire consequences and significant changes caused due to the ignorance and greed contributed by players and stakeholders of the forestry industry, it is crucial to implement stringent policies aimed at fostering environmental sustainability, growth, and regeneration on a larger scale.
In response to the illegal timber trade, the EU has imposed sanctions on entities like Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) and, following the Ukraine crisis, on Russia and Belarus. These sanctions prohibit EU imports of timber from sanctioned entities or regions. As a result, EU timber imports from Russia sharply declined after sanctions were imposed, altering market dynamics and increasing reliance on other suppliers.
These measures illustrate the EU's commitment to combatting illegal timber trade and promoting sustainable practices, thereby protecting forests crucial for biodiversity, climate regulation, and disaster mitigation.
Delaying such policies risks perpetuating forest exploitation and exacerbating environmental challenges, reinforcing the urgency of proactive regulatory action. However, despite opposition from China and the United States, the European Union is fully committed to implementing the EUDR, considered the most ambitious anti-deforestation regulation globally, without any delays.
The EUDR outlines several measures to be taken in the case of non-compliance. This can result in fines totaling 4% of the company’s annual turnover within the EU. Companies also face the prospect of their products and/or income being confiscated. Companies facing non-compliance measures will have the details of the incidents published on the EU Commission website. This could result in further reputational damage. If they were found to be in breach of the EUDR, this could be particularly damaging to companies that promote themselves on ‘green’ values.
Role of Technology Innovation in Sustainable Forestry
The forestry industry’s transition to a digitized supply chain requires more than just digitization and automation—it needs collaboration across the entire industry. This means integrating technology and innovation to create a fully connected and automated system. This shift involves all operators, stakeholders, and policymakers in forestry, aiming for smart forest management, harvesting, transportation, manufacturing, and distribution. The goal is to digitize all assets in the forest supply chain, connecting suppliers, customers, and partners into a unified digital ecosystem.
#TimberID technology solutions launched by Deeplai is one such platform for the deployment of a digitized supply chain providing traceability and authentification of timber after harvestation.
TimberID Deforestation Report structure includes:
? Satellite images sourcing - Copernicus Sentinel
? Forest maintained map, lost forest, gained forest, from 2020 to date, on full year
? Basic data about the plot, such as surface area, coordinates, biomass
? Forest cover map for the year 2020 provided by the EC JRC
? Tropical Tree Cover, 2020
? Satellite image + Forest mask - annual forest loss view
? 2020-2023 - Satellite image + Forest mask
? Risk of future deforestation based on historical data
? Verification of commodity plots
? Map of proximity to population centers risk
? Map of flood risk, Map of fire risk, Map of farmland proximity risk
#TimberID Technology Solutions is EUDR-compliant
To know more find our deployment guide link here:https://deeplai.com/eudr/
and watch the video by clicking on the link given below: https://youtu.be/a10IO4of3Bg
Log on to www.deeplai.com for more information on #TimberID.
?Author
Emmanuel Joseph
International Business Development Manager
Mobile: +48573978711
E-mail: [email protected]
Founder/Principal Partner ~ Serial Entrepreneur ~ Philanthropist ~ Visionary ~ Business-Strategist/Re-Engineering
3 个月Emmanuel Joseph Ambadipudi Interesting article, definitely a need for in light of #EU #directives pertaining to #deforestation. We were working on a project that had a direct impact on deforestation, therefore know for a fact that your product would resolve many areas of concern in #Europe and rest of the #world. Would be pleased to discuss, lets talk...