About the EU deforestation regulation
The European Union Deforestation Regulation came into effect on 29 June 2023. It’s a law to ensure that products imported to the EU have not contributed to:
- global deforestation
- degradation of forest ecosystems.
It affects 7 commodities and their related products. New Zealand exporters will need to provide documents demonstrating that all relevant commodities entering the EU market are deforestation-free.
Find out more about the EU deforestation regulations
What must be in your due diligence statements
Exporters will have to provide EU importers with a due diligence statement that includes:
- a full description of the product
- the quantity of the product
- the country of production
- the geolocation of all plots of land where the relevant commodities were produced. If the product contains ingredients containing relevant commodities, the due diligence statement must include geolocations of the plots of land where these relevant commodities were produced
- date or time range of production
- the name, postal address and email address of any business or person from whom they have been supplied with the relevant products
- the name, postal address and email address of any business, operator or trader to whom the relevant products have been supplied
- adequately conclusive and verifiable information that the relevant products are deforestation-free
- adequately conclusive and verifiable information that the relevant commodities have been produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production.
Any deforestation or forest degradation on the given plots of land will automatically disqualify all relevant commodities and relevant products from those plots of land from being placed on the EU market.
Annex II of the regulation has a template for due diligence statements.
European Union Deforestation Regulation – EUR-Lex
Key definitions
Forest: a land area larger than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ. This excludes land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.
Deforestation: the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not. Note: A forest that has experienced a natural disaster (such as fire or flooding) and is then subsequently converted into agricultural land (after the cut-off date) would be considered deforestation under the regulation.
Forest degradation: structural changes to forest cover, taking the form of the conversion of:
- primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into plantation forests or into other wooded land, or
- primary forests into planted forests.
Geolocation: the geographical location of a plot of land described by means of latitude and longitude coordinates corresponding to at least one latitude and one longitude point and using at least 6 decimal digits. For plots of land over 4 hectares used for producing relevant commodities other than cattle, sufficient latitude and longitude points must be provided to describe the perimeter of each plot of land.
Plantation forest: a planted forest that is intensively managed and meets, at planting and stand maturity, all the following criteria: one or two species, even age class, and regular spacing. Plantation forests include short rotation plantations for wood, fibre and energy, and exclude forests planted for protection or ecosystem restoration, as well as forests established through planting or seeding, which at stand maturity resemble or will resemble naturally regenerating forests.
Operator: any natural or legal person who, in the course of a commercial activity, places relevant products on the market or exports them.
