The easy commodity choice that helps forests

A viral chocolate spread can feel like pure culture, not policy. Monocle’s look at Algeria’s El Mordjene craze is basically a reminder that modern treats are multi ingredient supply chains, including cocoa and palm oil. The hard part is not giving up dessert. The hard part is making sure commodity demand does not quietly finance illegal forest clearing.

That is not theoretical. One peer reviewed analysis traced emissions from tropical deforestation and found roughly 2.6 gigatonnes of CO₂ per year from agriculture and forestry expansion (2010–2014), with a substantial share connected to international trade. And cocoa in particular has left fingerprints that are measurable: a Nature Food study found cocoa was directly or indirectly responsible for about 37.4% of protected area forest loss in Côte d’Ivoire since 2000, and about 13.5% in Ghana.

A biographical moment that explains the method

Brian Schatz’s (D-HI) approach has been hands on for over 30 years. A NOAA Sea Grant publication describes how a 21 year old Brian Schatz founded Youth for Environmental Service in 1994, linking students to hands-on projects and scaling the program across schools.

This helps explain why his signature move in Congress is often structural. He has served in roles that reward operational thinking, including on Appropriations and on committees that live in the world of rules, compliance, and government capacity. When he talks about forests now, the instinct is not: please care. It is: here is the mechanism that forces caring to show up in paperwork, audits, and consequences.

The FOREST Act: a market rule, not a consumer sermon

The FOREST Act of 2023 (S.3371) is Schatz’s cleanest expression of that approach. The bill would prohibit importing products made wholly or partly with covered commodities produced on illegally deforested land, and it builds the enforcement spine around import declarations.

Congressional materials spell out the initial covered commodity list: palm oil, soybeans, cocoa, cattle, and rubber, with the U.S. Trade Representative required to publish and update both the commodity list and a list of covered products tied to tariff schedules. The bill also directs USTR to identify countries lacking adequate protection against illegal deforestation, build action plans with benchmarks, and run an interagency working group that includes Customs and Border Protection in the advisory loop.

Why illegal deforestation is the point, not a compromise

Schatz’s public pitch is deliberately narrow: use U.S. market access to deter commodity-driven illegal deforestation and strengthen monitoring and enforcement where corruption and environmental crime thrive. The focus aligns with the Biden administration’s own demand side framing. Executive Order 14072 called for evaluating options, including legislation, to address the importation of commodities sourced from recently deforested land. USDA’s later policy framework is explicit that potential U.S. demand side policy intends to focus first on illegal deforestation, while minimizing unnecessary compliance costs in lower risk contexts.

Schatz is doing what we will push for every lawmaker to do: He is not trying to regulate every land use decision on Earth from Washington. He is trying to deny U.S. market rewards to the subset of production tied to illegal clearing, corruption, and weak enforcement, and to do it through agencies that already understand trade compliance.

Lessons from Europe

Europe has proven both the promise and the friction. The EU’s deforestation regulation requires due diligence statements and has contemplated penalties that can reach up to 4% of EU turnover for violations. It has also faced delay and simplification efforts because readiness, administrative burden, and IT systems are policy, not footnotes. The EU Council’s 2025 revision postponed application to December 30, 2026, with a further cushion for micro and small operators.

The guardrails are straightforward. First, make enforcement risk-based, so paperwork is not a substitute for outcomes. Second, avoid pushing costs onto smallholders without support, a core concern highlighted in reporting on how traceability requirements land on cocoa and coffee producers. Third, keep the bill honest about limits: supply chain initiatives can reduce deforestation in specific regions and commodities, but they cover only a share of tropical deforestation unless paired with broader policy mixes.