In order to provide guidelines and tools to facilitate compliance with the new European Union (EU) regulations on deforestation-free products, the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers and Workers (CLAC) is conducting a series of workshops to support its member coffee and cocoa producer organizations.
Initiative supported by GIZ
“The theoretical-practical workshop on the new requirements for collecting and sending geolocation data for compliance with the European Union Regulation for deforestation-free products (EUDR) is an initiative whose technical component is being developed by CLAC’s Climate Change Unit, with the financial support of the German Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ).
Initially, two workshops were facilitated in June and July 2024 in Honduras, specifically in La Labor, Ocotepeque and Marcala, La Paz, in which a total of 36 organizations and 56 people participated.
“We are learning how to create baselines or create polygons to be able to share them with Fairtrade. It is very important because we as an organization had found it difficult, we realized that we already had some material and some points, polygons already created, but we had not been able to combine them or have them in a single document to send it to Fairtrade for analysis, to see if there was risk of deforestation,” said Samuel Sanchez, from the organization COSAGUAL, in Honduras, during the training.
The workshops also have a practical field component and are carried out through a coordinated effort between the climate change and sustainable production units, field officers, CLAC’s regional and commercial directorates.
“The experience has been very good and people are very happy because they have been able to clear up many doubts about the new regulation, especially about the collection of information. The intention today is to reinforce what is needed to complete the information, especially the formats that must be handled at the level of the organizations,” said Walter Lopez, CLAC fiedl officer in Honduras.
Jesús Constanza, coordinator of CLAC’s Sustainable Production Unit, said that more training sessions like these will be held in the coming months, in response to the needs of the member organizations, in view of the entry into force of the new EU regulations in December of this year.
“We are already planning, together with GIZ, other workshops in El Salvador, Guatemala, and potentially Mexico, and we also have three planned for Peru. The idea is that this initial workshop can give us elements to be able to make adjustments in all the following ones,” said Jesus Constanza, after the first training.
Thus, during the month of August 2024, more workshops will be held in El Salvador and Guatemala, in coordination with GIZ Central America. They will also be held in different areas of Peru.
Scope and target population
The workshops are aimed at technical teams or members of small producer organizations, who, as part of the work agenda of these spaces, are also presented with the free deforestation risk assessment service offered by Fairtrade International in partnership with Satelligence.
The training also includes a practical exercise of collecting and downloading geolocation information such as points and polygons, using the UTM GEOMAP application, and a practical exercise based on the data collected for loading and adjustment (points and polygons) to the templates requested by Fairtrade.
Likewise, guidelines and tools are provided to organizations so that they can validate the quality of the data collected and correct any errors that may be found in this process.
“Our goal is that people are as trained as possible to make this submission to Fairtrade, and soon they can have their deforestation risk assessment. The format in which the submission is made is what we have to prepare the teams well, because we are talking about a system that is completely new,” said Daniela Alpízar, CLAC Climate Change Officer, workshop facilitator for the organizations in Central America.
“We are trying to support, to support the organizations so that this is as less difficult as possible, and in some other way, that they continue to cope with all the different regulations that are going to come,” she concluded.
Thus, the Climate Change Unit developed the theoretical and methodological creation of the workshop. And since February, when Fairtrade International made the deforestation risk assessment service available to coffee and cocoa organizations, the Climate Change Unit, in coordination with CLAC field teams, has been providing virtual advice through meetings and webinars to organizations in Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil.
In addition to the process described above, a course on this topic is being developed on CLAC’s virtual learning platform, called CLAASE, which will be available in the coming weeks so that organizations will have access to these guides and tools to strengthen their knowledge in the management of geographic information systems.
