Indonesia urges EU support on deforestation rules

the EU’s anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR), which takes effect on 30 December. The rules will require companies to prove, using geolocation data, that products sold on the EU market do not come from deforested land. Jakarta fears the burden will fall disproportionately on its nearly eight million smallholder farmers. Officials are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to provide more support for implementation. “EUDR is there, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even if we wanted to revise it, this is a regulation that we have to comply with,” said Erma Rheindrayani, director for Americas and Europe at Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, speaking at an embassy event on Monday. She stressed that the focus must now be on “implementation, so smallholders don’t suffer.” Febriani Sumbung, a cocoa farmer from West Papua who leads a cooperative of 170 producers, warned of heavy costs. “We recently tried to map out polygons. It cost thousands of dollars – and even then, ...