“Forest destruction rivalling the size of Liverpool caused by UK imports last year”

…New analysis from Global Witness reveals that the UK’s imports of “forest-risk” commodities, including beef, soy and palm oil, have wiped out areas of the world’s forests the size of major cities like Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff over the last year – the same year that Labour pledged to tackle what they call a “nature emergency”.

Ending the use of products linked to forest destruction should have been controlled by the Environment Act, which the UK introduced in 2021 to force companies to check their supply chains for goods grown on illegally deforested land.

But years later, that law still hasn’t been enacted due to successive government delays…

In Papua New Guinea, we found that three logging companies – East New Britain Resources Group, Rumbunan Hijau Group an Bewani Oil Palm Plantations Limited – deforested at least 74,100ha of forest between 2007 and 2019… [see responses from the companies here]

Our Beef Watch bot reported found that deforestation of 400ha of land in Brazil … in one year could be traced back to JBS’s indirect suppliers…[JBS responded to Global Witness’ request for comment at the time]…