The European Commission’s new EUDR simplification package has shut US Tribal forests out of the regulation’s low-risk pathway, with the Intertribal Timber Council warning that 7.8 million hectares of sovereign-managed Indigenous forestland will face the same compliance regime as regions of active deforestation when enforcement begins on 30 December 2026. That is according to the Intertribal Timber Council (ITC), the Washington-based nonprofit consortium of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and individuals established in 1976 to advance the management of natural resources central to Native American communities.
Despite months of engagement from Tribal representatives and repeated warnings about the regulation’s unintended impacts on Indigenous communities, the Commission declined to reopen the primary legal text and instead offered only limited technical adjustments through implementing acts, FAQs and guidance documents. As a result, compliance obligations affecting Tribal Nations remain fundamentally unchanged, with wood entering EU markets in 2026 already being harvested under contractual demands that flow downstream from customer requirements.
Speaking to the regulation’s refusal to differentiate sustainable Indigenous forestry from deforestation-risk supply chains, ITC President Cody Desautel, who is also Executive Director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said Tribal Nations are among the world’s most successful forest stewards yet continue to be treated by Brussels as equivalent to regions experiencing active deforestation. “It is a failure to recognize Indigenous governance, sustainable management, and sovereignty,” Desautel said.
Across the United States, Tribal Nations manage 7.8 million hectares of forestland under sovereign governance systems supported by long-term management plans, active restoration practices, prescribed fire and sustainable harvest standards. Those operations feed a $3 billion annual US-EU forest products trade now locked into a compliance regime designed for high-risk supply chains, with Indigenous-led forest management globally recognised as one of the most effective approaches to halting forest loss.
Underlining the paradox at the centre of the regulation, Desautel warned that a law intended to protect forests is now creating barriers for Indigenous peoples who have successfully protected forests for generations. Tribal producers are already facing new compliance demands through downstream contracts and customer requirements, with the 2026 harvest cycle running well ahead of the 30 December enforcement date.
The ITC is calling on the European Commission to recognise Tribal forests in the United States as low-risk, legally protected systems, to simplify geolocation requirements for Indigenous and low-risk operations, and to establish temporary compliance flexibility during the rollout. It comes as Wood Central reported on the White House push for a “green lane” on US timber and parallel calls from the American Loggers Council to scrap the regulation entirely as Brussels held the line on the primary legal text.
With less than eight months until enforcement, Desautel pressed Brussels to open direct government-to-government consultation with Tribal Nations and to recognise the 7.8 million hectares of US Tribal forestland as a low-risk, legally protected system before the 30 December 2026 cut-off.
- To learn more about the EUDR and the latest simplification process, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from last week.
