The press release was pretty much ready to go. There were a few things that needed filling in and a couple of typos, but it had been drafted and circulated. Just over 850 words, with a canned quote from Environment Secretary Steve Barclay in there too.
“Embargoed until 0001 Thursday 23 May 2024,” it said at the top, before the title: “New legislation laid to strip out illegal deforestation from UK supply chains.” Following that there were three bullet points: “New regulations will help protect habitat of endangered species including orangutans, leopards, and jaguars from illegal deforestation. Supply chains for soy, palm oil, cocoa, and cattle products will undergo annual due diligence checks. The Forest Risk Commodities Regulations 2024 will come into force from 1st April 2025.”
But that press release, written by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), was never sent to anyone. Something happened between that draft - of which I’ve been leaked a copy - being written and then actually being made public.
What happened was the Prime Minister at the time, Rishi Sunak, leader of the Conservative Party, called a General Election. He announced it, standing in the rain on Downing Street, on 22 May, the day before the press release was due to be published and the new legislation introduced. Two days later, 24 May, parliament was prorogued, eight days later it was dissolved, and then the Election, won by the Labour Party, was held on 4 July. All these months later - 17, to be precise - and those regulations still haven’t seen the light of day.
As that draft press release went some way to explaining, the new regulations were intended to operationalise Schedule 17 on “forest risk commodities” of the Environment Act, which came into law in November 2021. The purported aim is to curb the UK’s contribution - an outsize one - to deforestation around the world. After the global corporate sector’s failure to ensure voluntarily over the last few decades that it isn’t commercialising goods and products that contribute to the degradation or destruction of the world’s forests, the UK and other countries - the US, China, the EU etc - need to bring in laws.
Not just any kind of laws, mind. Laws with teeth, as that tired expression goes.
“British shoppers will now have assurance that the goods they buy are not contributing to this deforestation,” DEFRA’s press release confidently asserted. “The commodities identified are key drivers of deforestation with consumers exposed through a range of processed foods, chocolate, and meat.”
What the existence of that press release shows is just how close the UK came to bringing in these regulations. What it also shows is how weak they would have been - for example, applying only to “illegal” deforestation rather than all deforestation, as well as omitting other key commodities such as coffee, rubber, wood and gold.
And what about human rights - and the rights of indigenous people in particular? Schedule 17 of the Environment Act makes no mention of rights at all, and neither does the press release. More than one billion people worldwide rely on forests for their homes and livelihoods, yet DEFRA arguably gives the impression deforestation is only worth combating because it is endangering the habits of certain popular species.
For example, orangutans and leopards are mentioned three times in the press release, jaguars twice, but people not once.
Indeed, people don’t even merit a mention in Barclay’s quote listing deforestation’s negative impacts: “destroys the habitat of iconic endangered species such as orangutans and leopards, increases carbon emissions, causes climate instability, and reduces wider biodiversity.” As I asked rhetorically more than four years ago, in an article in which I sought opinion on the incoming UK legislation from two former United Nations Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous People: “How can you help protect the world’s forests if you ignore those who know them best and stand to lose the most when they’re razed?”
Over and over again, in recent years, DEFRA has claimed the new regulations are “imminent.” Let’s hope the reason they still haven’t been introduced, since Labour took over, is because they’re being improved. Among other things, that means applying them to all deforestation, like the EU is currently set to do with its own legislation, and more commodities, like the EU too, as well as ensuring international human rights and environmental laws and standards are respected, including those pertaining specifically to indigenous people. “Relevant local laws”, as the Environment Act puts it, just isn’t good enough.