International Mother Earth Day

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Protecting natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa continues to be a focus for the United Kingdom. Our support includes the Investments in Forest and Sustainable Land Use program. This is mobilising private investment into forest protection, restoration and sustainable land use. Its highly successful first phase, which ran from 2017 to 2024, operated in eastern, west and central Africa. Our Biodiverse Landscapes Fund aims to reduce poverty and protect and restore biodiversity in environmentally critical landscapes, including the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area and areas in Madagascar and the western Congo Basin. There are many other examples but those are two, to answer my noble friend’s point.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, given the importance of deforestation as far as climate is concerned, can the Minister celebrate Earth Day by publishing this week the Schedule 17 forest risk due diligence regulations? He assured the House before Easter that they would be published shortly, so why not this week?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

This forest risk commodities regulation is a good news story and the UK has been pushing for it. The publication of the statutory instrument is imminent and the House will be able to debate it. The UK will be one of the countries at the forefront of introducing sensible, well consulted regulations that will protect forests by making sure that supply chains are rigorously enforced.