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Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 5, pages 845–853 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity, is accelerated by global demand for commodities. Although prior literature has linked deforestation to global supply chains, here we provide a fine-scale representation of spatial patterns of deforestation associated with international trade. Using remote sensing data and a multi-region input–output model, we quantify and map the spatiotemporal changes in global deforestation footprints over 15 years (2001–2015) at a 30-m resolution. We find that, while many developed countries, China and India have obtained net forest gains domestically, they have also increased the deforestation embodied in their imports, of which tropical forests are the most threatened biome. Consumption patterns of G7 countries drive an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year. Some of the hotspots of deforestation embodied in international trade are also biodiversity hotspots, such as in Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Liberia, Central America and the Amazonian rainforest. Our results emphasize the need to reform zero-deforestation policies through strong transnational efforts and by improving supply chain transparency, public–private engagement and financial support for the tropics.

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Fig. 1: Scheme to map the 15-year deforestation footprint induced by consumption in Singapore.
Fig. 2: Global deforestation driven by consumption in six example countries.
Fig. 3: Comparisons of deforestation footprints between countries/country groups.
Fig. 4: Embodied deforestation area per forest biome of selected net importers and exporters.
Fig. 5: GDP per capita and ratios of tropical forest/mangroves in the deforestation footprints.

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Data availability

The results, calculated as described in the Methods, are based on the data from the Global Forest Watch (https://www.globalforestwatch.org), FAOSTAT (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL), EliScholar (https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yale_fes_data/1/) and Eora MRIO (https://worldmrio.com) databases, all of which are publicly available. The plantation mask data are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12661145.v2. Maps for each G20 country are provided in Supplementary Fig. 6. The raster files (GeoTIFF) of these maps are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Code availability

Programming code used for analysis is available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (project no. 14200135), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science through Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 18KT0004, and the Moonshot Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research and Development Program MS509. We thank T. Nakashizuka, J. Fry and O. Taherzadeh for valuable comments, and P. Potapov for technical help in processing Hansen’s data.

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  1. Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan

    Nguyen Tien Hoang & Keiichiro Kanemoto

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Contributions

K.K. designed and led the research. N.T.H. and K.K. conducted the analysis. N.T.H. prepared the figures. N.T.H. and K.K. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Keiichiro Kanemoto.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Robin Chazdon and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Biome-level deforestation footprint per capita in 2015.

(a) the number of embodied tree loss per capita and (b) the deforestation footprint area per capita.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–6 and Tables 1–5.

Reporting summary

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Supplementary Video

Animation of the cumulative spatial deforestation footprints from 2001 to 2015 for the USA.

Supplementary Data

1 – ‘Commodity Sector List’ tab: The list of commodities/sectors generated from the MRIO classification; 2 – ‘Agricultural Commodity Ranking’ tab: The table of commodity-induced deforestation rankings for every production country for the entire period 2006–2010.

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Hoang, N.T., Kanemoto, K. Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests. Nat Ecol Evol 5, 845–853 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01417-z

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