Brune Poirson, Minister of State, attached to the Ministry of State for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, has called for EU-wide measures to halt deforestation in supply chains, such as cocoa. Mrs Poirson made the statement as France handed Denmark the rotating presidency of the Amsterdam Declarations Partnership, which aims to achieve deforestation-free commodities.

France is at the forefront of efforts to stop the import of products tainted with deforestation. It already has a law to halt deforestation in supply chains and has just opened a public consultation on its Imported Deforestation Strategy. France has also extended its “private sector alliance for sustainable palm oil” to look at sustainable commodities more generally, and it has announced plans to monitor imports of forest-risk commodities much more closely.

This last move was inspired by the launch of the 2018 Trase Yearbook, which assesses where major purchasing countries and companies source their soya. The call for EU-wide measures was made at the “Towards sustainable products without deforestation” meeting in Paris, which was attended by 150 participants from the EU and producer countries.

Representatives from producer countries applauded France’s call and reminded attendees that deforestation has been rising for decades while the situation for environmental and human rights defenders has worsened. They called on member states and the European Commission to tackle the challenges arising from unsustainable food supply chains.