Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The impact of near-real-time deforestation alerts across the tropics

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 172–178 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Reducing deforestation to mitigate climate change necessitates monitoring of deforestation activity. However, while freely available deforestation alerts on forest loss are available, the effect of these alerts and the presence of subscribers in a particular area is unclear. Here, we show that subscriptions to alerts in 22 tropical countries decrease the probability of deforestation in Africa by 18% relative to the average 2011–2016 levels. There is no effect on other continents, and the availability of alerts does not significantly change deforestation outcomes. This decrease in Africa is higher in protected areas and concessions, suggesting that alerts either increased capacity to enforce existing deforestation policy or induced the development of more effective anti-deforestation policies. Calculated using the social cost of carbon for avoided deforestation in Africa, we estimate the alert system’s value to be between US$149 million and US$696 million.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Timeline of GLAD rollout and study region.
Fig. 2: Impact of GLAD availability on deforestation.
Fig. 3: Spatial distribution and number of subscriptions.
Fig. 4: Impact of GLAD subscriptions on deforestation.
Fig. 5: Estimates of GLAD subscriptions in concessions and protected areas on deforestation.

Data availability

Datasets analysed for this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The codes used to generate the figures and tables are available via Zenodo29.

References

  1. Baccini, A. et al. Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps. Nat. Clim. Change 2, 182–185 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Busch, J. et al. Potential for low-cost carbon dioxide removal through tropical reforestation. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 463–466 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Sims, K. R. Conservation and development: evidence from Thai protected areas. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 60, 94–114 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Alix-Garcia, J. M., Shapiro, E. N. & Sims, K. R. E. Forest conservation and slippage: evidence from Mexico’s national payments for ecosystem services program. Land Econ. 88, 613–638 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Gibbs, H. K. et al. Brazil’s soy moratorium. Science 347, 377–378 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Romijn, E. et al. Assessing change in national forest monitoring capacities of 99 tropical countries. For. Ecol. Manag. 352, 109–123 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hansen, M. C. et al. Humid tropical forest disturbance alerts using Landsat data. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 34008 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Assunção, J., Gandour, C. & Rocha, R. DETERring Deforestation in the Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement (Climate Policy Initiative, 2017).

  9. Hansen, M. C. et al. High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change. Science 342, 850–854 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Gibbs, H. K., Brown, S., Niles, J. O. & Foley, J. A. Monitoring and estimating tropical forest carbon stocks: making REDD a reality. Environ. Res. Lett. 2, 045023 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Howard, P. & Sylvan, D. Expert Consensus on the Economics of Climate Change (Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law, 2015); https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/expertconsensusreport.pdf

  12. Bulletin d’Alertes GLAD du 1er Trimestre de 2018 (Republique du Cameroun, 2018); http://wri-sites.s3.amazonaws.com/forest-atlas.org/cmr.forest-atlas.org/resources/bulletins/Bulletin%20suivi%20du%20couvert%20forestier%201%C3%A8me%20Trimestre.pdf

  13. Palm Oil Progress Report 2017 (PepsiCo, 2017); https://perma.cc/DXY2-XSKL

  14. Palm Oil Progress Update (Cargill, 2015).

  15. Vargas, C., Montalban, J. & Leon, A. A. Early warning tropical forest loss alerts in Peru using Landsat. Environ. Res. Commun. 1, 121002 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Finer, M. et al. Combating deforestation: from satellite to intervention. Science 360, 1303–1305 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Imbens, G. W. & Wooldridge, J. M. Recent developments in the econometrics of program evaluation. J. Econ. Lit. 47, 5–86 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Lohr, S. Sampling: Design and Analysis 2nd edn (Cengage Learning, 2010).

  19. Margono, B. A., Potapov, P. V., Turubanova, S., Stolle, F. & Hansen, M. C. Primary forest cover loss in Indonesia over 2000–2012. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 730–735 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Bwangoy, J.-R. B., Hansen, M. C., Roy, D. P., Grandi, G. D. & Justice, C. O. Remote sensing of environment wetland mapping in the Congo Basin using optical and radar remotely sensed data and derived topographical indices. Remote Sens. Environ. 114, 73–86 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Global Wetlands Map (Center for International Forestry Research, 2017); https://doi.org/10.17528/cifor/006412

  22. Land Surface Temperature [DAY] (1 MONTH - TERRA/MODIS) (NEO, 2020); https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MOD_LSTD_M

  23. CHIRPS: Rainfall Estimates from Rain Gauge and Satellite Observations (CHIRPS, 2019); https://www.chc.ucsb.edu/data/chirps

  24. GHSL - Global Human Settlement Layer (European Commission, 2019); https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu

  25. NGA’s World Port Index (NGA, 2017); https://services2.arcgis.com/jUpNdisbWqRpMo35/arcgis/rest/services/WPI_Ports2017/FeatureServer

  26. GEOFABRIK (Geofabrik, 2019); https://www.geofabrik.de/data/download.html

  27. GADM data (GADM, 2018); https://gadm.org/data.html

  28. World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) (IUCN and UNEP-WCMC, 2016); https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/our-work/quality-and-effectiveness/world-database-protected-areas-wdpa

  29. Moffette, F., Alix-Garcia, J., Shea, K. & H. Pickens, A. The Impact of Near-real-time Deforestation Alerts Across the Tropics (Zenodo, 2020); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4054099

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank S. Jamilla, E. Goldman and I. Collins for creating the database. We thank K. Chomitz, T. Coger, J. Engelmann, N. Harris, H. Nembhard, F. Stolle and N. Ullery and participants at the Environmental and Resources Seminar of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the Applied Economics Seminar at Oregon State University for comments. We acknowledge funding from the World Resources Institute; the organization had no input into the study design nor impact on the presentation of the results.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Fanny Moffette

  2. Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Fanny Moffette

  3. Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Jennifer Alix-Garcia

  4. Forests Team, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Katherine Shea

  5. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Amy H. Pickens

Authors
  1. Fanny Moffette
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jennifer Alix-Garcia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Katherine Shea
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Amy H. Pickens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

F.M. and J.A.-G designed research, performed econometric analyses and led the writing. K.S. managed the data compilation and contributed to the writing. A.H.P contributed to the database.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fanny Moffette.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Juliano Assunção, Johannes Reiche and Juan Robalino for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplement A GLAD availability (including summary statistics, supplementary estimation results, Tables A1–A11 and Figs. A1 and A2), Supplement B Subscriptions (including description of subscription classification, supplementary estimation results, and Tables B1–B22 and Figs. B1–B3) and Supplement C Review of other alert systems.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Moffette, F., Alix-Garcia, J., Shea, K. et al. The impact of near-real-time deforestation alerts across the tropics. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 172–178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00956-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00956-w

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing