I am writing on behalf of the NGO Forest Coalition, a coalition of UK NGOs working to end global deforestation, protect forests and defend human rights to end the nature and climate crises. We request a meeting and a prompt response that sets out the timeline for legislation to end the UK’s harmful role in global deforestation, the scope of the legislation and the timetable for the HM Treasury review into the effectiveness of existing financial regulations in preventing deforestation finance.
Deforestation-driven biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are high-level threats to UK national security according to the government’s own assessment, Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security. Against this backdrop, we write to call on HM Government to take decisive action to eliminate deforestation from UK supply chains, halt the financing of deforestation, and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who depend on forests for their livelihoods.
As the national security assessment makes clear, failing to tackle deforestation in UK supply chains undermines the national interest, fuelling the cost of living crisis, worsening geopolitical instability, accelerating nature loss and driving climate change, with consequences felt across the UK. This failure also directly drives well-documented human rights abuses, including land grabs, displacement and the disenfranchisement of forest peoples, despite the UK Government’s stated priority to uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Ending deforestation is essential to our nation’s security. Four out of six ecosystems identified as significant for the UK’s security are forests, in the Amazon, Congo Basin, South East Asia, Canada and Russia. Some of these are at risk of collapse as soon as 2030, according to the government report.
We call on the government to urgently legislate to end deforestation and linked human rights abuses in UK supply chains. The Environment Act was passed in 2021, with Schedule 17 of that Act prohibiting the use of forest-risk commodities in commercial activity if they were produced illegally. However, the secondary regulations needed to give effect to this part of the law have not been brought forward. The Environment Act also fails to prohibit the use of commodities produced through ‘legal’ deforestation, a missed opportunity when UK businesses are already preparing to ensure products are deforestation-free in compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation. We call for the UK legislation to be expanded in scope to include ‘legal’ deforestation, and to include provisions to protect the rights of people who depend on forests for their livelihoods.
Since the Environment Act was passed in 2021, more than 39,300 hectares of forest – an area the size of Liverpool – has been destroyed to produce goods imported to the UK. This forest destruction was linked to direct imports of goods such as cattle products, soy, palm oil, cocoa, coffee and rubber, and does not account for these commodities when they are embedded in processed and manufactured products, such as cocoa in chocolate or palm oil in shampoo, meaning the true scale of the UK’s contribution to deforestation is far higher.
We also call for an end to the financing of deforestation and for the government to provide certainty on funding supply-side programmes that support Indigenous Peoples and local community rights, forest governance reforms and civil society empowerment.
We are imminently approaching the 2025 deadline to end commodity-driven deforestation, yet most financial institutions are still failing to assess or manage deforestation and human rights risks. Many lack any relevant policies on these topics. Over £300bn of UK pension fund investments is estimated to be invested in companies and financial institutions with high deforestation risk.
In addition to the national security implications, nature degradation is as detrimental to the economy as climate change. Damage to nature is slowing the UK economy already and nature loss linked to deforestation could cause a 12% hit to the country’s GDP – larger than the impact of the global financial crisis or Covid-19.
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 requires HM Treasury to carry out a nine-month review of the effectiveness of existing financial regulations in preventing deforestation finance. We call on the government to initiate this review as a matter of urgency.
Our calls are backed by government oversight and advisory bodies. In June 2025, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) Chair Toby Perkins wrote a letter urging “the Government to bring forward this secondary legislation as soon as possible.” The EAC’s inquiry report recommended the government to improve the law so it covers all deforestation, includes the financial sector and provides additional human rights protections, including for customary land tenure rights. These improvements – along with covering non-agricultural drivers of deforestation – are in line with recommendations from the independent and cross-sector Global Resource Initiative (GRI) Taskforce.
British retailers have also called on the government to act on the threat posed by deforestation. The Retail Soy Group, an independent group of international food retailers including all major UK retailers, wrote a letter calling for the UK government to adopt forest risk commodity legislation, because the delay is causing market confusion. Soy grown on land illegally deforested in Brazil poses a risk to UK supermarkets and fast food chains.
Public support for action is likewise strong. Polling in October 2025 by More in Common for Global Witness and WWF-UK found that 76% of Britons support the UK’s commitment to end deforestation by 2030, including a majority of Reform voters.
Ending deforestation is good for the UK’s national security, and for business, biodiversity, climate and human rights. The national security assessment shows the catastrophic price of delay. The impact of ecosystem collapse will be far reaching: crop failures, intensification of natural disasters, infectious diseases, conflict and instability.
We would therefore appreciate the opportunity to discuss the matters outlined above with you and kindly ask the Government to set out in reply to this letter:
- the timetable for legislation to end the UK’s harmful role in global deforestation
- the scope of the legislation
- the timetable for the HM Treasury review into the effectiveness of existing financial regulations in preventing deforestation finance.
This letter was signed by:
- Matthew Owen, Director, Cool Earth
- Sam Lawson, Director, Earthsight
- Faith Doherty, Forest Programme Lead, Environmental Investigation Agency
- Alexandra Benjamin, Forest Governance Policy Advisor, Fern
- Asad Rehman, Chief Executive, Friends of the Earth
- Helen Bellfield, Deputy Executive Director, Global Canopy
- Shruti Suresh, Director, Global Witness
- Gemma Hoskins, Global Climate Director, Mighty Earth
- Joe Eisen, Executive Director, Rainforest Foundation UK
- Mike Barrett, Chief Scientific Adviser, WWF UK
This letter was sent to: The Rt Hon Emma Reynolds, MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, CC: Mary Creagh CBE MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Nature); Ruth Davis OBE, UK Special Representative for Nature; Rachel Kyte, UK Special Representative for Climate.
NGO Forest Coalition 