Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support measures to address international deforestation.

The UK Government has a long and proud history of supporting action to combat deforestation.

As part of our 25 Year Environment Plan, we have committed to protect the world’s forests by enhancing sustainability and supporting deforestation-free supply chains. We are signatory to the Amsterdam Declarations and have endorsed the New York Declaration on Forests, which supports a fully sustainable palm oil supply chain from 2020.

The Government recently convened a Global Resource Initiative taskforce, which will report this spring and recommend actions the UK can take to address our global commodity supply chain footprint. We are a member of Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, a public-private partnership working to help organisations achieve their deforestation-free commitments. In addition the UK has set up the Partnership for Forests Programme, which supports organisations that produce agricultural goods without causing deforestation. We have also been at the forefront of tackling illegal logging though our commitment to the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade and Timber Regulations.

At the 2015 Paris climate summit, Germany, Norway and the UK pledged $5 billion over the period 2015 to 2020 to developing countries to protect forests. We have a shared objective of ensuring the forests and land-use sector plays a key role in meeting global climate goals along with encouraging ambitious action from developing countries to protect their rainforests while supporting communities to develop sustainable forest practices.

Our International Climate Finance (ICF) spending is our primary mechanism to meet the UK’s international forest commitments.

At the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September 2019, the Prime Minister announced that the ICF will be doubled to at least £11.6 billion between 2021/22 and 2025/26, in a clear signal that the UK is stepping up its efforts even further to address climate change and tackle deforestation. This fund will include spending to protect forests and mangroves, create new protected areas and restore degraded ecosystems which were once home to forests, mangroves and other precious habitats.