A global overview on commodity deforestation and trade

Agricultural expansion is a key driver of deforestation, especially in tropical regions.

Commodity-driven deforestation is concentrated in a small number of countries, with just three (Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Bolivia) accounting for over half of the global total in 2023.

In the map below, you can see total commodity-driven deforestation for each producer country.

Most deforestation is driven by a few key commodities.

Cattle products account for about half of global agricultural commodity-linked deforestation, mainly in Brazil, where forests are often first converted to pasture.

Soybean cultivation is another important driver across South America, especially in Brazil and Bolivia.

In DRC, staple crops such as rice and cassava are key deforestation drivers, while cocoa dominates in West Africa and oil palm in Indonesia.

Cattle products are by far the greatest direct driver of deforestation, with pasture being the land-use that often replaces forest, especially in Brazil.

A decade ago, oil palm was the second most important commodity driver, but rates of deforestation linked to palm oil have since declined, with rice, cassava and maize now ranking higher in recent years.

Soya beans have consistently been an important deforestation driver, although the overall trend is falling.

While the area of commodity-driven deforestation in Brazil continues to dwarf that of other countries, recent rates show a marked decline from a peak in the mid-2000s. More recent drops in deforestation rates in Brazil, which are likely to be linked to improved enforcement of environmental laws, are not yet reflected in this data.

Other countries show a different story. Both DRC and Bolivia have seen substantial increases in commodity-driven deforestation over time.

In Indonesia, deforestation rates rose sharply, peaking in the mid 2010s, before falling back in recent years.

One way to look at trade and deforestation is to simply combine the deforestation estimates above with global bilateral trade records. This shows where commodities associated with deforestation are exported to – a so-called ‘direct trade’ perspective.

This shows that China, the EU and USA are the most-exposed economies to deforestation from directly-imported goods.

In reality, trade often happens in multiple steps, with some countries acting as intermediaries, re-exporting commodities elsewhere. Commodities are also often processed into other forms before being exported, such as soybeans being crushed into soybean meal for animal feed.

Using statistics on global production, trade and processing, we can link commodity imports back to their likely geographic origin. We do this by making a ‘mass-balance’ assumption that the origins of re-exports reflect the composition of a country’s overall supply.

We can also visualise this information as flows of deforestation exposure between producer countries (on the left in the chart below) and destination countries (on the right). This shows how the opportunity to improve trade sustainability is concentrated in a few global trade flows, notably between Brazil and China, Côte d’Ivoire and the EU, and Brazil and the EU.

When we include domestic markets, Brazilian consumers are the most exposed to deforestation globally.

Worldwide, 70-80% of commodity deforestation is linked to products consumed domestically (in the country of production), rather than exported products. In Brazil and DRC, this share is over 99%. However, in other markets such as China, the EU and USA, most deforestation exposure comes from imported products.

While useful for identifying the environmental risks associated with specific trade relationships, the datasets above still do not tell the full story. Commodities may be heavily processed before being traded further (such as palm oil in toothpaste). Deforestation can also be ‘embedded’ in products where the commodity is not an ingredient, such as deforestation linked to the production of animal feed for cattle used to make a leather coat. Deforestation-linked products might also be used by industries in even more indirect ways (e.g. catering services for employees), than in turn produce unrelated materials for export.To capture this, we can use a so-called ‘consumption-based’ or ‘hybrid’ model, which combines physical trade data with economic modelling to link deforestation to final consumption.

This goes much further than just looking at imports, instead revealing how our entangled economies can ultimately drive deforestation in distant places, even through very indirect routes.

This again shows the importance of domestic markets, with Brazil’s economy playing a dominant role in its own deforestation footprint. But it also shows how consumers in China, the USA and EU are linked to substantial forest loss in countries such as Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC and Indonesia.