EUDR makes one demand most timber suppliers underestimate: for every harvest plot over 4 hectares, you owe the EU a boundary polygon — not a single dropped pin. A point says “somewhere around here.” A polygon says “this exact piece of forest,” and only the second one survives an audit.
The 4-hectare rule
- Plot ≤ 4 ha: one GPS Point is acceptable.
- Plot > 4 ha: a Polygon — the closed boundary of the plot.
A 12-hectare concession block with a single point will be rejected. The regulation is checking which trees, and a point can’t answer that.
What a compliant polygon looks like
Coordinates are decimal degrees (WGS84), ordered [longitude, latitude], and the
ring must close (first coordinate = last coordinate):
{
"type": "Feature",
"properties": { "plot_id": "KAL-0421", "area_ha": 12.4 },
"geometry": {
"type": "Polygon",
"coordinates": [[
[116.8312, -1.2921],
[116.8377, -1.2918],
[116.8381, -1.2974],
[116.8309, -1.2979],
[116.8312, -1.2921]
]]
}
}The four mistakes that fail a DDS
- A point for a >4 ha plot. The single most common rejection.
- Swapped coordinates —
[lat, lng]instead of[lng, lat]. Your plot lands in the ocean. - An open ring — the polygon’s first and last point don’t match.
- A boundary that overlaps post-2020 forest loss. The geometry is valid but the plot isn’t deforestation-free.
Don’t want to draw these by hand?
This is exactly what giomap does. You send what you have — coordinates, a shapefile, a concession map, even a sketch — and we return EU-spec GeoJSON, a deforestation-since-2020 check on each plot, and a DDS-ready pack your buyer accepts. Send us your plots.