rec_69

Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC (Text with EEA relevance) · European Union

(69) The increasing worldwide demand for biofuels and bioliquids, and the incentives for their use provided for in this Directive, should not have the effect of encouraging the destruction of biodiverse lands. Those finite resources, recognised in various international instruments to be of value to all mankind, should be preserved. Consumers in the Community would, in addition, find it morally unacceptable that their increased use of biofuels and bioliquids could have the effect of destroying biodiverse lands. For these reasons, it is necessary to provide sustainability criteria ensuring that biofuels and bioliquids can qualify for the incentives only when it can be guaranteed that they do not originate in biodiverse areas or, in the case of areas designated for nature protection purposes or for the protection of rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems or species, the relevant competent authority demonstrates that the production of the raw material does not interfere with those purposes. The sustainability criteria should consider forest as biodiverse where it is a primary forest in accordance with the definition used by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in its Global Forest Resource Assessment, which countries use worldwide to report on the extent of primary forest or where it is protected by national nature protection law. Areas where collection of non-wood forest products occurs should be included, provided the human impact is small. Other types of forests as defined by the FAO, such as modified natural forests, semi-natural forests and plantations, should not be considered as primary forests. Having regard, furthermore, to the highly biodiverse nature of certain grasslands, both temperate and tropical, including highly biodiverse savannahs, steppes, scrublands and prairies, biofuels made from raw materials originating in such lands should not qualify for the incentives provided for by this Directive. The Commission should establish appropriate criteria and geographical ranges to define such highly biodiverse grasslands in accordance with the best available scientific evidence and relevant international standards.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-28 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.