Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions

Pendrill, Florence; Persson, Martin; Godar, Javier; Kastner, Thomas; Moran, Daniel; Schmidt, Sarah; Wood, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.03.002

Cited by 409 publications

(278 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Soy is a heavily-traded oilseed and a major driver of global deforestation (Pendrill et al 2019). Soy is traded in bulk, both as a raw bean and as a processed product-soybean meal, used for animal feed, and soy oil, which is primarily used for biofuel production and other industrial processes (Brack et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Ermgassen

Ayre

Godar

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Zero deforestation commitments (ZDCs) are voluntary initiatives where companies or countries pledge to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. These commitments offer much promise for sustainable commodity production, but are undermined by a lack of transparency about their coverage and impacts. Here, using state-of-the-art supply chain data, we introduce an approach to evaluate the impact of ZDCs, linking traders and international markets to commodity-associated deforestation in the sub-national jurisdictions from which they source. We focus on the Brazilian soy sector, where we find that ZDC coverage is increasing, but under-represents the Cerrado biome where most soy-associated deforestation currently takes place. Though soy-associated deforestation declined in the Amazon after the introduction of the Soy Moratorium, we observe no change in the exposure of companies or countries adopting ZDCs to soy-associated deforestation in the Cerrado. We further assess the formulation and implementation of these ZDCs and identify several systematic weaknesses that must be addressed to increase the likelihood that they achieve meaningful reductions in deforestation in future. As the 2020 deadline for several of these commitments approaches, our approach can provide independent monitoring of progress toward the goal of ending commodityassociated deforestation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Ermgassen

Ayre

Godar

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…By looking at a land-use change in a globalized world, Friis and Nielsen [35] discussed the socio-economic and environmental interactions, feedback mechanisms and spillover effects over distance and across scales through the concept of "telecoupling". Pendrill et al [36] estimate that around 29%-39% of deforestation-related emissions, as part of the carbon footprint of forest-risk commodities, such as beef and oilseeds, are driven by international trade. Sandström et al [37] demonstrated that land-use change embedded in commodity production in tropical countries is an important contributor to the GHG footprints of EU diets.…”

Section: Embedded Deforestation In Current Global Trade and Financementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the discussion on embedded deforestation in agricultural commodity imports gains more intensity, most of the assessments of the deforestation footprint and discussions in policy documents focus on the big six forest-risk commodities: timber, palm oil, beef, soy, cocoa and coffee [36,40,41]. Due to the complexity of global production and trade systems, deforestation appears as an embedded risk also in the supply chains of the products and the economic sectors that are not direct drivers.…”

Section: Embedded Deforestation In Current Global Trade and Financementioning

confidence: 99%

Embedded Deforestation: The Case Study of the Brazilian–Italian Bovine Leather Trade

Mammadova

Masiero

Pettenella

2020

Forests

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Deforestation and forest degradation driven by Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) are important sources of carbon emissions. Market globalization and trade liberalization policies reinforce this trend and risk deforestation to be embedded in global value chains. Due to the complexity of global production and trade systems, deforestation risk is also embedded in the supply chains of the products and sectors that are not direct deforestation drivers. Bovine leather is a commodity closely entangled in the debates about deforestation as it is a by-product of cattle. This research focuses on leather trade between Brazil and Italy to demonstrate the channels through which Italian imports of Brazilian leather could possess embedded Amazonian deforestation and related risks. The data employed for the analysis was searched at three different levels for the leather trade between Brazil and Italy: (a) the country level annual leather trade statistics for the years 2014–2018 taken from the Comtrade database; (b) the state level leather trade data, for the years 2014–2018 taken from the Comexstat database; and (c) the exporter–importer level leather trade data for the period of August 2017–August 2018, based on customs declarations. The analysis helps to demonstrate that the Italian leather trade with Brazil possesses the risk of deforestation unless the proper traceability and due diligence systems are in place to claim the opposite. The European and Italian leather industry need to be more proactive in acknowledging the existence of the risk at different levels, putting full traceability systems in place and sending out clear market signals that deforestation is not tolerated, and that sustainability is valued.

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“…embedded natural resources) that are 'virtually' exported. Virtual resource flows are commonly studied through footprint calculations, life cycle assessments, and modelling and mapping of trade flows (Henders et al 2015, da Silva et al 2016, Pendrill et al 2019, Seaquist and Johansson 2019. Water, land, and carbon are examples of natural resources that are embedded in production (Henders et al 2015, Johansson et al 2016 and virtually exported through trade.…”

Section: Natural Resources Embedded In Tradementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such methods aim to visualize, analyse, and understand how international trade distances consumption from the socio-environmental impacts of production. It is estimated that between 21%-37% of global land use change associated with international trade of goods and services occur in locations other than where they are consumed (Wiedmann and Lenzen 2018), and that 29%-39% of deforestationrelated carbon emissions are driven by international trade (Pendrill et al 2019). For example, top-consuming regions like the US, EU, and Japan together appropriate and consume over half of the embedded land in global trade, mainly from Africa, Russia, Brazil, China, and Australia.…”

Section: Natural Resources Embedded In Tradementioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign demand for agricultural commodities drives virtual carbon exports from Cambodia

Johansson

Olin

Seaquist

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Rapid deforestation is a major sustainability challenge, partly as the loss of carbon sinks exacerbates global climate change. In Cambodia, more than 13% of the total land area has been contracted out to foreign and domestic agribusinesses in the form of economic land concessions, causing rapid large-scale land use change and deforestation. Additionally, the distant drivers of local and global environmental change often remain invisible. Here, we identify hotspots of carbon loss between 1987-2017 using the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS and by comparing past and present land use and land cover. We also link global consumption and production patterns to their environmental effects in Cambodia by mapping the countries to which land-use embedded carbon are exported. We find that natural forests have decreased from 54%-21% between 1987 and 2017, mainly for the expansion of farmland and orchards, translating into 300 million tons of carbon lost, with loss rates over twice as high within economic land concessions. China is the largest importer of embedded carbon, mainly for rubber and sugarcane from Chinese agribusinesses. Cambodian investors have also negatively affected carbon pools through export-oriented products like rubber. The combined understanding of environmental change and trade flows makes it possible to identify distant drivers of deforestation, which is important for crafting more environmentally and socially responsible policies on national and transnational scales.

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Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions

Cited by 409 publications

References 62 publications

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Embedded Deforestation: The Case Study of the Brazilian–Italian Bovine Leather Trade

Foreign demand for agricultural commodities drives virtual carbon exports from Cambodia

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