Products from Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and Myanmar are the only countries classified as having a “high risk of deforestation” under the Europen Union’s new country classification list. The classifications, published on Friday, are a key part of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and follow the approval of a new and improved ‘Global Benchmarking System’ on Wednesday.
According to the European Commission, “the risk classification defines the extent of compliance checks that Member States’ competent authorities foresee among operators sourcing from different countries – for example, 1% for ‘low risk’, 3% for ‘standard risk’ and 9% for ‘high risk’.”
“In effect, this means that 1-out-of-every-100 forest products will be inspected from a low-risk country, 3-out-of-every 100 from a standard risk and 9-out-of-every 100 products from a high-risk country,” according to an official with an understanding of the new rules, who spoke to Wood Central on the condition of anonymity.
Where does your country rank in terms of deforestation risk?
Of the 190+ countries ranked, Wood Central can reveal that 49 are now considered ‘standard risk’, including Brazil (South America’s largest exporter of forest products), Mexico, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon (Africa’s two largest forest exporters).
In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia—two of the world’s largest markets for palm oil, pulp, and plywood—have been classified as ‘standard risk’, while Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands—two countries that in 2021 were involved in an EIA investigation into China’s trade (also a low-risk country) in deforested and illegal plywood—have been classified as ‘low risk’.
At the same time, products coming from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have been classified as ‘low risk’, whilst goods coming from neighbouring Pakistan are considered ‘standard risk’ – a part of the world where the Taliban have in the past smuggled sleepers across the border.
Whilst in the Middle East, products coming from Israel—a country historically not strongly associated with deforestation—now carry the same level of risk as the 10 countries with the highest known levels of deforestation (including the Ivory Coast, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Nicaragua, Niger, Gambia, Paraguay, Malawi, Chad, Benin, and Uganda).
Wood Central understands that the methodology underpinning the new benchmarking system has been detailed in a Staff Working Document circulated by the European Commission. The classifications are based on data from the Global Forest Resources Assessment conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In addition, Country-level data can be accessed via the FAO public website.
- To learn more about the new EUDR rules, which could reduce compliance costs by as much as 30%, click here for Wood Central’s story from earlier this month.
