The EU Deforestation Regulation serves imperialist plunder
Hereby we share a translation of an article published by Punalippu.
This year the EU will adopt a new deforestation regulation (EUDR), according to which companies which trade cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood as well products derived from these (such as meat products, chocolate, pulp, paper products etc.) in the EU must prove that no forest has been destroyed in the production chain post 31st of December 2020. For example satellite images should be used as proof. In addition, a geolocation tag which allows the product’s origin to be traced back to a single piece of land must be assigned to the product.
Using satellite images or geolocation tags is however only possible for large landowners and monopolies, and medium and small peasants have no possibility to prove the ”responsibility” of their products. At the same time the EU, an alliance of imperialists, is preaching to the peasants of oppressed countries about a problem the imperialists themselves have created and which they constantly promote. Poor and medium peasants are not the ones whose agriculture destroys forests, but it is the large landowners and imperialist monopolies who are guilty, they are the ones who turn forest areas into giant plantations for products for export and rob land from the medium and poor peasants, who mostly farm for local demand. Earlier similar ”environmentalist” speech has been used to attack against poor peasants and to crush medium and small production in the countryside for example in Brazil, which the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) has denounced in their statement.
It is also erroneous to think that the monopolies would act more forest-friendly due to the regulation. Already now many monopolies say that they will establish two separate production chains: one for products imported to the EU, one for products imported elsewhere. And never before have any laws stopped the monopolies from plundering, murdering and causing destruction in the oppressed countries, where regimes serving foreign imperialists do their everything to enable this.
As a solution to the problems of the medium and small peasants to meet the requirements of the regulation different kinds of cooperatives, producer communities and the larger ”participation” of States has been proposed. This does not in reality improve the conditions of the smaller peasants but subjugates and oppresses them even more.
Central for the regulation is that the most powerful monopolies are strengthened and the production is centralized more and more. The Swiss monopoly Nestlé, US monopoly Mars Wrigley and the Italian monopoly Ferrero have written a letter in which they support the regulation. For example Nestlé says it already has mechanisms required by the regulation to follow its production chain. Thus it gets an advantage compared to its competitors. On the other hand for example the US and the European Confederation of Paper Producers have proposed that the law should be delayed and some of the member countries of the EU, including Finland, have voiced their concerns on how the law will be implemented.
Therefore the EU deforestation regulation in reality benefits large landowners and monopolies and it promotes further subjugating small and medium peasants to them. It does not stop deforestation which is caused by imperialist plunder, erecting giant plantations for exports, but it rather accelerates it. It also does not give land to the tiller, on the contrary, it promotes land robbing.
