Publication

This paper examines how global supply-chains link consumers of agricultural and forest commodities to forest destruction in tropical countries. In particular, the authors focus on the link between deforestation and consumption through international trade for beef, soybeans, palm oil and wood products in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. They find that around a third of recent tropical deforestation and associated carbon emissions can be attributed to the four case commodities in the eight countries studied. Furthermore, they suggest that, on average, a third of this deforestation was connected to agricultural exports, mainly to the EU and China.