BRUSSELS, May 4 (Reuters) – The European Commission has decided to exclude imports of leather from its anti-deforestation law, it said on Monday, after a campaign by industry groups which argued that production does not incentivise the cattle farming that fuels forest destruction.
The exemption will remove leather, hides and skins from the world-first law, which from December will require companies selling goods including soy, coffee, beef and palm oil into the EU to prove their products did not cause deforestation.
The EU’s decision confirmed a Reuters report from last week.
“The main driver of deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land linked to the production of seven commodities covered by the regulation – cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber, and some of their derived products,” said the European Commission in a statement.”
“Under the Regulation, any operator or trader who places these commodities on the EU market, or exports from it, must be able to prove that the products do not originate from recently deforested land or have contributed to forest degradation,” it added.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
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