{"id":7104,"date":"2023-06-26T10:16:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T07:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/?p=7104"},"modified":"2023-06-26T10:16:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T07:16:25","slug":"ny-governor-should-sign-tropical-deforestation-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/news\/ny-governor-should-sign-tropical-deforestation-bill","title":{"rendered":"NY Governor Should Sign Tropical Deforestation Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York State Assembly took a crucial step towards\u00a0approving<\/a>\u00a0the Tropical Deforestation-Free Procurement Act on Wednesday, a bill intended to ensure that companies contracting with the state are not contributing to tropical deforestation and human rights abuses overseas. The governor should sign it into law without delay.<\/p>\n

New York is the third largest economy among US states. Each year, it provides\u00a0millions of meals<\/a>\u00a0to students in 1,800 public schools, uses large amounts of paper in its administration and in communications to residents, and builds public infrastructure requiring wood products. The bill would\u00a0require<\/a>\u00a0that contractors for these and other services not source any soy, beef, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, wood pulp, paper, and wood products from land where deforestation or forest degradation occurred after January 1st, 2023.<\/p>\n

Contractors would have to provide public data demonstrating how they addressed relevant risks in their supply chains and identify precisely where their products originated. Crucially, the bill requires that contractors\u00a0ensure<\/a>\u00a0that agricultural commodities respect land tenure rights of communities, Indigenous peoples\u2019 right to free, prior, and informed consent, and workers\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Globally, industrial agriculture is the\u00a0largest driver<\/a>\u00a0of tropical deforestation. And much industrial agriculture is\u00a0rife with human rights abuses<\/a>\u00a0and environmental degradation. Among the abuses related to logging and industrial agriculture that Human Rights Watch documented in a number of countries are intimidation and\u00a0violence<\/a>\u00a0against forest defenders,\u00a0exploitative labor conditions<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 including\u00a0forced and child labor<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0contamination of communities\u2019 water sources<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and\u00a0workers<\/a>\u2019 and\u00a0communities\u2019 exposure to toxic pesticides<\/a>. Human Rights Watch has also documented\u00a0forced displacement of rural communities<\/a>\u00a0as their lands are converted to plantations and pastures.<\/p>\n

The important steps towards a new New York law should inspire similar initiatives in other states. Currently, a separate\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0pending in California would legislate deforestation-free procurement. A more wide-ranging\u00a0bill at the\u00a0federal level<\/a>\u00a0would restrict the import of agricultural commodities that are grown on illegally deforested land, or in violation of Indigenous peoples\u2019 and local communities\u2019 land rights.<\/p>\n

The New York initiative should be just the beginning of greater efforts across the US to help protect tropical forests<\/a> and the human rights of forest-dependent people around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York State Assembly took a crucial step towards\u00a0approving\u00a0the Tropical Deforestation-Free Procurement Act on Wednesday, a bill intended to ensure that companies contracting with the state are not contributing to tropical deforestation and human rights abuses overseas. The governor should sign it into law without delay. New York is the third largest economy among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7109,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7104\/revisions\/7109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}