On the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity and as European Union’s trade ministers meet this week in Brussels, 50 environmental and human rights groups from around the world expressed grave concern that the EU will use its new deforestation regulation to ratify the trade deal with Mercosur.

In an open letter to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, the organizations, including signatories from 21 countries, said the EU’s new regulation against deforestation (EUDR) must not be used to legitimize the EU-Mercosur deal.

An examination of EU-Mercosur trade relations reveals that the EU imports commodities annually from Mercosur countries with a deforestation footprint of 120,000 hectares, and that EU trade flows have been proven to be linked to violence against local communities. The trade deal will grant preferential tariff quotas to products like meat, sugar, rice and bioethanol, and reduce export duties on soy and biodiesel based on soy. In this way the agreement would perpetuate the Mercosur countries’ role as provider of raw materials and commodities to the EU while boosting deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, as well as land and human rights conflicts in South America.

"The EU’s new regulation against deforestation has the potential to be a true game changer in the fight against deforestation. But without eliminating the root causes of deforestation -such as the industrial livestock industry or the biofuel production in the EU, the destruction of vital ecosystems such as the Cerrado, Chaco and Pantanal would increase", underlines Anne-Sofie Sadolin Henningsen from Forests of the World.