[1]Great news: The European Parliament just voted to significantly
strengthen the EU's draft deforestation law.
John,
The EU will have a powerful Deforestation Regulation soon, banning
products made with deforestation and related human rights violations.
There’s still a trialogue negotiation on the final text coming up next
(between the European Parliament, national governments and the European
Commission) – but it’s worth celebrating what the #Together4Forests
campaign AND YOU have helped achieve so far.
[ [link removed] ]If you use Twitter, click here to retweet and celebrate this milestone!
Or you could forward this email to spread the good news.
The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to strengthen the EU’s proposed
law – so it will also cover what European banks invest in, and more
commodities and farm animals, and stronger human rights protections too.
This doesn’t mean we can stop pushing corporations and financial
institutions directly to change – but once this law kicks-in, we’ll have a
powerful new tool for defending people and planet against corporate greed.
Since 2020, hundreds of thousands of SumOfUs members from around the world
have petitioned, emailed, tweeted, and even phoned EU decision-makers for
this law. The #Together4Forests campaign was founded by a group of leading
environmental NGOs, and coordinated by WWF from Brussels, but it was your
actions – and people like you spreading the word to friends and family –
that turned this into a powerful movement.
This campaign is another reminder that together we can make our voices
heard in Brussels, and even mobilize a winning majority of Members of the
European Parliament (MEP) when it counts.
To be clear though, we didn’t get everything we wanted from the European
Parliament. And the trialogue negotiations starting now could still lead
to some rotten compromises.
In July, thousands of SumOfUs members contacted MEPs on the Parliament’s
Environment Committee to recommend extending the law to protect threatened
ecosystems like wetlands and savannahs. The Parliament stuck with a
forests-only scope, but at least approved a review clause, so the EU can
widen protection to other ecosystems next year. They better.
So let’s celebrate this milestone, and build on it together,
John… Not just because we believe that corporations and their
lobbyists won’t just roll over because of this week’s news. Not just
because we believe that we’ve got to push for better nature and human
rights laws, even before the ink dries on the last. And not just because
climate impacts are hitting faster and harder around the globe than
experts believed only a few years ago… Let’s keep building this movement
together because we believe that another world is possible.
[ [link removed] ]Can you help us with a monthly gift to sustain our
forests, climate and human rights campaigns around the world?
Thanks for all that you do,
Eoin and the SumOfUs team
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More information:
[ [link removed] ]European Parliament ground-breaking vote on deforestation law a ‘big
victory’ - ClientEarth lawyers, ClientEarth, 13 September 2022
[ [link removed] ]‘Ray of hope’: Activists hail EU’s pioneering anti-deforestation law,
Euractiv, 14 September 2022
[ [link removed] ]Climate change: new rules for companies to help limit global
deforestation, European Parliament, 13 September 2022
SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.
Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3. [link removed]
