Fern

Fern focuses on making the EU work for people and forests. Read more: https://www.fern.org/who-we-are/
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20/04/2026

📄 Europe's largest pulp and paper companies, including SCA, UPM and The Navigator Company, are pressuring the European Commission to weaken near-term targets of the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry ( ) Regulation. Their call for forest carbon absorption targets to be abandoned would support their business models—but harm European .

🪵 The Environmental Paper Network and Fern NGO have published a report that documents subsidies flowing to the pulp and paper sector, and their social and ecological impacts in Finland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. It finds that the industry has an outsized and destructive effect on in and abroad, and that the giant conglomerates that dominate the industry are absorbing precious public funds that could be used to support a in forestry.

🇪🇺 The must phase out these harmful subsidies and redirect funding to smaller, environmentally sustainable businesses and to creating the opportunities to deliver local, thriving rural economies.

Read the report 👉 https://environmentalpaper.org/report/pulping-unfair-incentives-separating-eu-policies-from-paper-industry-interests/

05/12/2025

Today marks the very day of Fern's 30th anniversary!

🌱 Fern was founded in 1995 with a clear mission: to protect and the rights of people who depend on them.

🌲 Like a tree in a forest, Fern has never stood alone. We are part of a greater whole and work in service of those closest to forests, supporting them to protect and fundamental rights, and helping raise their voices in the corridors of power.

As we move into a new decade, Fern is committed to maintaining its roots, while branching out to respond to different times:

💚 We will continue to fight for accountability, but with ever broader coalitions of the willing.
🌍 We will continue to support forest peoples, but also connect with new European constituencies.
🌱 We will double down on reducing economic inequality, the largest threat to achieving change.

🎥️ Watch our 30th anniversary video ▶ https://youtu.be/0a15HlA3Sr0?si=DH8jgmA5CtMH8sRT

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08/10/2025

🇱🇷🇪🇺The Liberian Voluntary Partnership Agreement has improved transparency and enforcement to tackle illegal logging. As stated by Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, this has been crucial to Liberian forests and communities.

Despite this, the European Commission put forward the proposal for termination of the VPA last month.

Liberian colleagues, backed by Fern, strongly oppose the Commission’s proposed unilateral termination which would reverse critical gains achieved over the past decade.

The and Partnership must be complimentary, as is already the case in the Republic of Congo 🇨🇬. The Forest Partnership should be developed through VPA multistakeholder forums.

To design a strong Forest Partnership, the NGO Coalition of Liberia, National Urban Cooperative Finance & Development Corporation (NUCFDC) and NUCFMB have conducted consultations with close to 100 Liberian civil society and community representatives.

This has resulted in agreement on the six prerequisites which are fundamental for a successful EU-Liberia Forest Partnership:
1️⃣ Maintain and build on the VPA’s inclusive and accountable governance structures.
2️⃣ Continue to support legal coherence and enforcement for the whole forest sector.
3️⃣ Guarantee continued long-term and inclusive financing.
4️⃣ Maintain a strong monitoring and accountability framework, including through independent forest monitoring (IFM).
5️⃣Provide tailored capacity-building to all actors.
6️⃣ Ensure cross-sector policy coherence and full government participation.

The Commission must provide clear guarantees that the Forest Partnership will meet these prerequisites.

Read the 6 Prerequisites for a successful EU-Liberia Forest Partnership here 👉 https://sdiliberia.org/node/407

Sustainable Development Institute SDI - Friends of the Earth Liberia Foundation for Community Initiatives - FCI The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Liberia Ministry of Justice - Liberia

02/10/2025

🌱 Fern was founded in 1995 with a clear mission: to protect and the rights of people who depend on them.

🌿 Three decades later, we are celebrating our 30th anniversary.

Resilience is at the heart of the organisation. Just like ferns – one of the few plants that grows in all forests across the world – Fern has grown and adapted through changing tides in the EU political landscape and in response to threats to forests in both Europe and the tropics.

Together, we can continue to strengthen the forest movement and achieve a world that respects forests and forest peoples’ rights.

Watch our 30th anniversary video 👉 https://lnkd.in/e6DkxKZS

15/04/2025

🌿 PEOPLES FOR FORESTS 🌳 POVOS PELAS FLORESTAS 🌲 PEUPLES POUR LES FORÊTS 🌴 PUEBLOS POR LOS BOSQUES 🌿

🌎 The world is calling for healing — and the union of peoples is where the answer begins.

🌱 This May, 90 protectors and defenders of forests and territories, coming from Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas, will gather in France.

💚 From every corner of the planet, they bring stories, struggles, and hopes to build alliances and imagine new paths towards a liveable, just future on our planet – together.

🌀 Healing the Earth. Protecting peoples. Defending the future.

Learn more here 👉 peoplesforforests.org/

Organised together with BLESS Foundation, Centro Indígena de Acción Integral, IDEF, Mídia NINJA and Thisistinta

Adres

Rue D’Edimbourg 26
Ixelles
1050

Website

https://www.fern.org/

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