F32: Amazon Fires (Emergency Motion)

F32 Emergency motion: Amazon fires

Lambeth

Mover: Helen Thompson.

Summation: Duncan Brack.

Conference notes with alarm the 84 per cent increase in the number of wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon between January and August 2019, compared to the same period in 2018.

Conference condemns the actions of the Bolsonaro government in encouraging the clearance of forests for agriculture, in breach of its own international commitments on climate change and biodiversity.

Conference further notes that:

1. The protection and restoration of the world’s forests is essential to tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity and guaranteeing the survival of many indigenous peoples and forest communities.
2. Clearance for agriculture is the single biggest driver of deforestation worldwide, and is particularly important in tropical forests.
3. Many of the commodities so produced, including soy, palm oil, beef and leather, pulp and paper, timber and cocoa, are destined for export markets in Europe, North America and Asia.
4. Most of the palm oil imported to the EU, and a significant proportion of soy, are destined for use for energy, mainly as biofuels for transport.

Conference calls on the EU and its member states, including the UK, to:

1. Refuse to ratify the Mercosur-EU free trade agreement until the Brazilian government has put in place effective measures to protect Brazilian forests and the rights of forest communities and indigenous peoples.
2. Introduce legislation requiring companies based in or operating in the EU not to place on the EU market any products whose production is associated with illegal or unsustainable deforestation.
3. Phase out subsidies and regulatory support for the production of biofuels based on crops.
4. Negotiate agreements with governments of forest-rich developing countries to improve forest governance and law enforcement and to make trade in forest risk commodities with the EU conditional on legal and sustainable production.
5. Work with other major consumer countries, including in particular China, to put in place global systems to regulate trade in illegal and unsustainable forest risk commodities.
6. Increase bilateral and multilateral development aid for the protection of forests worldwide.

Applicability: Federal.

Mover: 7 minutes; summation: 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes.