The DOI matches its Crossref record; 45 of the 45 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition
Open accessAbstract
While many developed countries are increasing their forest cover, deforestation is still rife in the tropics and subtropics. With international trade in forest-risk commodities on the rise, it is becoming increasingly important to consider between-country trade linkages in assessing the drivers of—and possible connections between—forest loss and gain across countries. Previous studies have shown that countries that have undergone a forest transition (and are now increasing their forest cover) tend to displace land use outside their borders. However, lack of comprehensive data on deforestation drivers imply that it has not been possible to ascertain whether this has accelerated forest loss in sourcing countries. To remedy this, we present a land-balance model that quantifies deforestation embodied in production of agricultural and forestry commodities at country level across the tropics and subtropics, subsequently tracing embodied deforestation to countries of apparent consumption using a physical, country-to-country trade model. We find that in the period 2005–2013, 62% (5.5 Mha yr −1 ) of forest loss could be attributed to expanding commercial cropland, pastures and tree plantations. The commodity groups most commonly associated with deforestation were cattle meat, forestry products, oil palm, cereals and soybeans, though variation between countries and regions was large. A large (26%) and slightly increasing share of deforestation was attributed to international demand, the bulk of which (87%) was exported to countries that either exhibit decreasing deforestation rates or increasing forest cover (late- or post-forest transition countries), particularly in Europe and Asia (China, India, and Russia). About a third of the net forest gains in post-forest transition countries was in this way offset by imports of commodities causing deforestation elsewhere, suggesting that achieving a global forest transition will be substantially more challenging than achieving national or regional ones.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Beef, soybeans, palm oil, and timber are considered the “big four” of forest-risk commodities (Walker et al., 2013;Pendrill et al., 2019).”
From Making deforestation risk visible. Discourses on bovine leather supply chain in Brazil (2020) · cites this paper as Pendrill et al., 2019
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change
Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Moore, R., Hancher, M., Turubanova, S. A., Tyukavina, A., Thau, D., Stehman, S. V., Goetz, S. J., Loveland, T. R., et al. (2013) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1244693 · Cited by 11,704
Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools
Seto, K. C., Güneralp, B., & Hutyra, L. R. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1211658109 · Cited by 5,086
Classifying drivers of global forest loss
Curtis, P. G., Slay, C. M., Harris, N. L., Tyukavina, A., & Hansen, M. C. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aau3445 · Cited by 2,340
Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s
Gibbs, H. K., Ruesch, A. S., Achard, F., Clayton, M. K., Holmgren, P., Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (2010) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0910275107 · Cited by 1,876
Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change
Rudel, T. K., Coomes, O. T., Moran, E., Achard, F., Angelsen, A., Xu, J., & Lambin, E. (2005) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2004.11.001 · Cited by 1,387
An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries
Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., Angelsen, A., & Romijn, E. (2012) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044009 · Cited by 1,366
Impacts of roads and linear clearings on tropical forests
Laurance, W. F., Goosem, M., & Laurance, S. G. W. (2009) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.06.009 · Cited by 1,243
Primary forest cover loss in Indonesia over 2000–2012
Margono, B. A., Potapov, P. V., Turubanova, S. A., Stolle, F., & Hansen, M. C. (2014) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2277 · Cited by 1,109
Tropical forests are a net carbon source based on aboveground measurements of gain and loss
Baccini, A., Walker, W., Carvalho, L., Farina, M., Sulla-Menashe, D., & Houghton, R. A. (2017) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aam5962 · Cited by 904
Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Sonter, L. J., Herrera, D., Barrett, D. J., Galford, G. L., Moran, C. J., & Soares-Filho, B. S. (2017) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00557-w · Cited by 723
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Evans, 2016, Deforestation in Australia: drivers, trends and policy responses. Pacific, Conservation Biol., 22, 130
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions
Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., Kästner, T., Moran, D. D., Schmidt, S., & Wood, R. A. (2019) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.03.002 · Cited by 716
Self-citationThe EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems
Rockström, J., Thilsted, S. H., Willett, W. C., Gordon, L. J., Herrero, M., Hicks, C. C., Mason-D’Croz, D., Rao, N., Springmann, M., Wright, E. C., et al. (2025) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(25)01201-2 · Cited by 599
Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests
Hoang, N. T., & Kanemoto, K. (2021) · Nature Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1038/s41559-021-01417-z · Cited by 359
Integrating remote sensing with ecology and evolution to advance biodiversity conservation
Cavender-Bares, J. M., Schneider, F., Santos, M. J., Armstrong, A., Carnaval, A. C., Dahlin, K. M., Fatoyinbo, T., HURTT, G. C., SCHIMEL, D. S., Townsend, P. A., et al. (2022) · Nature Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1038/s41559-022-01702-5 · Cited by 397
Impacts of international trade on global sustainable development
Xu, Z., Li, Y., Chau, S. N., Dietz, T. M., Li, C., Wan, L., Zhang, J., Zhang, L., Li, Y., Chung, M. G., et al. (2020) · Nature Sustainability · doi:10.1038/s41893-020-0572-z · Cited by 354
Metadata
- Authors
- Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T.
- Affiliations
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- Stockholm Environment Institute (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Persson, U Martin
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2019-05-01
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 055003
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2921450810
- Cited by
- 381
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 45 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 58 · 2023: 78 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 19.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Chalmers Research (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (The Trase.earth program)
- Naturvårdsverket (Environmental Research Appropriation 1:5)
- Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas (2016-00351)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Forestry › Forest Management and Policy
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Keywords
- deforestation, forest transition, forest-risk commodities, international trade, land use change, forest cover change, tropical and subtropical forests, cattle meat, oil palm, forest plantations
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
