spreads

Exacerbate
DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION
Commodity production on tropical forest lands continued to rise through the 2010s despite global stagnation in commodity prices in
the second half of the decade. Accordingly, a relatively limited number of export-oriented commodities — cattle, palm oil, soy, timber
and wood pulp — accounted for an outsize share of deforestation in the tropics. ▼ The cattle sector is the single largest direct driver of
tropical deforestation globally due to its
outsize footprint in the Amazon. At the
end of the last decade, major Brazilian
slaughterhouses signed a “cattle agreement”
brokered by Greenpeace, which
endeavored to clean up the sector. But
widespread cheating — and a large
clandestine market — limited the
effectiveness of the pact. Substantial
amounts of deforestation for cattle pasture
also shifted from the Amazon to
adjacent dry forests and wooded savannas
like the Chaco and Cerrado biomes.
And although the end of the 2010s saw a
surge in interest in meat alternatives in
the United States, global beef consumption
continued to rise with growing
levels of affluence. ▼ Palm oil arguably
attracted the most attention among
tropical commodities during the decade
for its rapid expansion and the heavy
toll it is taking on some of the world’s
most endangered forests and wildlife,
especially in Southeast Asia. Although
palm oil prices have been depressed
since 2012, the crop still represents the
most profitable form of agricultural
land use in many countries. As a result,
oil palm expansion was larger in the
2010s than in the 2000s. Asia added
nearly 4 million hectares of plantations
between 2010 and 2017, accounting
for nearly 90% of expansion over the
period. Pressure from environmental
groups and importing governments
— for example, the EU via renewable
fuels mandates — prompted many of
the largest companies operating in the
palm oil sector to adopt zero deforestation,
zero peat and zero exploitation
(ZDPE) policies in the first.
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