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Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation and repealing Regulation (EU) No 995/2010 (Text with EEA relevance)

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CELEX: 02023R1115-20241226

Definitions For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

(1) ‘relevant commodities’ means cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood;

(2) ‘relevant products’ means products listed in Annex I that contain, have been fed with or have been made using relevant commodities;

(3) ‘deforestation’ means the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not;

(4) ‘forest’ means land spanning more than 0,5 hectares with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of more than 10 %, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ, excluding land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use;

(5) ‘agricultural use’ means the use of land for the purpose of agriculture, including for agricultural plantations and set-aside agricultural areas, and for rearing livestock;

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(6) ‘agricultural plantation’ means land with tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit tree plantations, oil palm plantations, olive orchards and agroforestry systems where crops are grown under tree cover; it includes all plantations of relevant commodities other than wood; agricultural plantations are excluded from the definition of ‘forest’;

(7) ‘forest degradation’ means structural changes to forest cover, taking the form of the conversion of:

(a) primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into plantation forests or into other wooded land; or (b) primary forests into planted forests;

(8) ‘primary forest’ means naturally regenerated forest of native tree species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed;

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(9) ‘naturally regenerating forest’ means forest predominantly composed of trees established through natural regeneration; it includes any of the following:

(a) forests for which it is not possible to distinguish whether planted or naturally regenerated;

(b) forests with a mix of naturally regenerated native tree species and planted or seeded trees, and where the naturally regenerated trees are expected to constitute the major part of the growing stock at stand maturity;

(d) naturally regenerated trees of introduced species;

(10) ‘planted forest’ means forest predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding, provided that the planted or seeded trees are expected to constitute more than 50 % of the growing stock at maturity; it includes coppice from trees that were originally planted or seeded;

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(11) ‘plantation forest’ means a planted forest that is intensively managed and meets, at planting and stand maturity, all the following criteria: one or two species, even age class, and regular spacing; it includes short rotation plantations for wood, fibre and energy, and excludes forests planted for protection or ecosystem restoration, as well as forests established through planting or seeding, which at stand maturity resemble or will resemble naturally regenerating forests;

(12) ‘other wooded land’ means land not classified as ‘forest’ spanning more than 0,5 hectares, with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of 5 to 10 %, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ, or with a combined cover of shrubs, bushes and trees above 10 %, excluding land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use;

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(13) ‘deforestation-free’ means:

(a) that the relevant products contain, have been fed with or have been made using, relevant commodities that were produced on land that has not been subject to deforestation after 31 December, 2020; and (b) in the case of relevant products that contain or have been made using wood, that the wood has been harvested from the forest without inducing forest degradation after 31 December, 2020;

(14) ‘produced’ means grown, harvested, obtained from or raised on relevant plots of land or, as regards cattle, on establishments;

(15) ‘operator’ means any natural or legal person who, in the course of a commercial activity, places relevant products on the market or exports them;

(16) ‘placing on the market’ means the first making available of a relevant commodity or relevant product on the Union market;

(17) ‘trader’ means any person in the supply chain other than the operator who, in the course of a commercial activity, makes relevant products available on the market;

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(18) ‘making available on the market’ means any supply of a relevant product for distribution, consumption or use on the Union market in the course of a commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge;

(19) ‘in the course of a commercial activity’ means for the purpose of processing, for distribution to commercial or non-commercial consumers, or for use in the business of the operator or trader itself;

(20) ‘person’ means a natural person, a legal person or any association of persons which is not a legal person, but which is recognised under Union or national law as having the capacity to perform legal acts;

(21) ‘person established in the Union’ means:

(a) in the case of a natural person, any person whose place of residence is in the Union;

(b) in the case of a legal person or an association of persons, any person whose registered office, central headquarters or a permanent business establishment is in the Union;

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(22) ‘authorised representative’ means any natural or legal person established in the Union who, in accordance with Article 6, has received a written mandate from an operator or from a trader to act on its behalf in relation to specified tasks with regard to the operator’s or the trader’s obligations under this Regulation;

(23) ‘country of origin’ means a country or territory as referred to in Article 60 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

(24) ‘country of production’ means the country or territory where the relevant commodity or the relevant commodity used in the production of, or contained in, a relevant product was produced;

(25) ‘non-compliant products’ means relevant products that do not comply with Article 3;

(26) ‘negligible risk’ means the level of risk that applies to relevant commodities and relevant products, where, on the basis of a full assessment of product-specific and general information, and, where necessary, of the application of the appropriate mitigation measures, those commodities or products show no cause for concern as being not in compliance with Article 3, point (a) or (b);

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(27) ‘plot of land’ means land within a single real-estate property, as recognised by the law of the country of production, which enjoys sufficiently homogeneous conditions to allow an evaluation of the aggregate level of risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with relevant commodities produced on that land;

(28) ‘geolocation’ means the geographical location of a plot of land described by means of latitude and longitude coordinates corresponding to at least one latitude and one longitude point and using at least six decimal digits; for plots of land of more than four hectares used for the production of the relevant commodities other than cattle, this shall be provided using polygons with sufficient latitude and longitude points to describe the perimeter of each plot of land;

(29) ‘establishment’ means any premises, structure, or, in the case of open-air farming, any environment or place, where livestock are kept, on a temporary or permanent basis;

(30) ‘micro, small and medium-sized enterprises’ or ‘SMEs’ means micro, small and medium-sized undertakings as defined in Article 3 of Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ();

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(31) ‘substantiated concern’ means a duly reasoned claim based on objective and verifiable information regarding non-compliance with this Regulation and which could require the intervention of competent authorities;

(32) ‘competent authorities’ means the authorities designated under Article 14(1);

(33) ‘customs authorities’ means customs authorities as defined in Article 5, point (1), of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

(34) ‘customs territory’ means territory as defined in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

(35) ‘third country’ means a country or territory outside the customs territory of the Union;

(36) ‘release for free circulation’ means the procedure laid down in Article 201 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

(37) ‘export’ means the procedure laid down in Article 269 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013;

(38) ‘relevant products entering the market’ means relevant products from third countries placed under the customs procedure ‘release for free circulation’ that are intended to be placed on the Union market and are not intended for private use or consumption within the customs territory of the Union;

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(39) ‘relevant products leaving the market’ means relevant products placed under the customs procedure ‘export’;

(40) ‘relevant legislation of the country of production’ means the laws applicable in the country of production concerning the legal status of the area of production in terms of:

(a) land use rights;

(b) environmental protection;

(c) forest-related rules, including forest management and biodiversity conservation, where directly related to wood harvesting;

(d) third parties’ rights;

(e) labour rights;

(f) human rights protected under international law;

(g) the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), including as set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;

(h) tax, anti-corruption, trade and customs regulations.