THE UK’s consumption of commodities like soy, cocoa, palm oil, beef and leather is putting enormous pressure on forests around the world, MPs have warned.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) called on the Government to act with urgency as it released a 66-page report on Britain’s contribution to tackling global deforestation last week.

The committee said the intensity of the UK’s consumption on the world’s forests – when measured by its footprint per tonne of product consumed – is higher than that of China.

EAC chair Philip Dunne said this “should serve as a wake-up call to the Government”.

It comes after the Government announced that four commodities – cattle products (excluding dairy), cocoa, palm oil and soy – will have to be certified as “sustainable” if they are to be sold into UK markets.

The Government, which plans to gradually incorporate more products into the regime over time, has yet to provide a date for when the legislation will be introduced.

The committee said it is concerned this lack of timeline and its phased approach does not reflect the necessity of tackling deforestation urgently.

The report said: “The failure to include commodities such as maize, rubber and coffee within this scope does not demonstrate the level of urgency required to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.”

The EAC, which outlined a series of recommendations in the report, urged the Government to address these gaps and strengthen the existing legislative framework to ban businesses from trading or using commodities linked to deforestation.

It also called on ministers to develop a global footprint indicator to demonstrate the UK’s deforestation impact to the public and set a target to reduce it.

The committee said it heard concerns there is a lack of transparency over how planned investments into nature and climate programmes – including £1.5 billion earmarked for deforestation – will be spent and called for more clarity from ministers.

The MPs said they were also alarmed to hear from campaign group Global Witness that one person is killed every other day defending land and the environment.

They said support for indigenous peoples to participate fully in negotiations on deforestation activity is critical.

To fulfil its commitment to put environmental sustainability measures at the heart of global production and trade, the EAC repeated its calls for sustainability impact assessments to be conducted for all future trade agreements.

Mr Dunne said: “UK consumption is having an unsustainable impact on the planet at the current rate.

“UK markets must not be flooded with products that threaten the world’s forests, the people whose livelihoods rely on them and the precious ecosystems that call them home.

“There is little sense of urgency about getting a rapid grip on the problem of deforestation, which needs to match the rhetoric.

“Countries all around the world contribute to deforestation and the international community of course needs to do much more to tackle deforestation.”

He added: “To demonstrate genuine global leadership in this critical area, the UK must demonstrate domestic policy progress and embed environmental and biodiversity protections in future trade deals.”

Alexandria Reid, senior global policy adviser at Global Witness, who gave evidence to the inquiry, said: “The findings are clear, the UK will not reach net zero while British banks continue to fuel, and profit from, rampant deforestation of our climate-critical forests overseas.

“The Government will miss the global deadline to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 unless it acts now.”

Stuart Goodall, chief executive at industry body Confor, welcomed the report, and said: “While the focus of the report is on forest risk products such as soy, palm oil, coffee and cocoa, it does recognise the significance of logging and wood production, and when looked at alongside the previous report [Seeing the wood for the trees], it's clear that we need to plant far more wood-producing forests in the UK - to secure future timber supplies and to reduce pressure on fragile forests overseas.

Forestry Journal: Stuart Goodall broadly welcomed the report Stuart Goodall broadly welcomed the report

“The forestry and wood industry stands ready to work with the UK Government to start making inroads into reducing the 81 per cent of timber that the UK currently imports. Growing more timber here makes total environmental and economic sense.”

A government spokesperson said: “The UK is leading the way globally with new legislation to tackle illegal deforestation to make sure we rid UK supply chains of products contributing to the destruction of these vital habitats.

“This legislation has already been introduced through the Environment Act and is just one of many measures to halt and reverse global forest loss.

“We are also investing in significant international programmes to restore forests, which have avoided over 410,000 hectares of deforestation to date alongside supporting new green finance streams.”