Sustainable commodity sourcing requires measuring and governing land use change at multiple scales
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Abstract
The increased availability of remote sensing products and new legislative agendas are driving a growing focus on farm‐level traceability and monitoring to tackle commodity‐driven deforestation. Here, we use data on land use change in Brazil (1985–2021) from Mapbiomas to demonstrate how analyses of the drivers of deforestation are sensitive to the scale of analysis: while pixel‐ or property‐level analyses identify proximate drivers of deforestation, analyses at larger scales (subnational regions or countries) capture more complex land use dynamics, including indirect land use change. We argue that initiatives which seek to monitor and address commodity‐driven deforestation—such as the European Union's deforestation due‐diligence regulation and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development's Greenhouse Gas Protocol—must be conscient of these wider land use dynamics. Only by measuring progress and defining success at multiple scales can initiatives for sustainable commodity sourcing create the right mix of incentives for addressing deforestation.
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While individualized supply chain traceability can greatly expand the scope of SCG, it is also important to consider patterns at larger geographic scales and across sectors.
“While this individualized approach to supply chain traceability can greatly expand the scope of SCG, it is also important to consider patterns that play out at larger geographic scales and across sectors (Zu Ermgassen et al 2023).”
From Cattle supply chain fidelity in the Brazilian Amazon: key considerations for deforestation monitoring (2024) · cites this paper as Zu Ermgassen et al 2023
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Cites
A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome
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Skidmore, M. E., Barrozo, M., Rausch, L., & Gibbs, H. K. (2024) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ad7a0d · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- zu Ermgassen, E. K., Renier, C., Garcia, A., Carvalho, T., & Meyfroidt, P.
- Affiliations
- Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain Louvain‐la‐Neuve Belgium
- UCLouvain (BE)
- Stockholm Environment Institute (SE)
- Fund for Scientific Research (BE)
- Venue
- Conservation Letters
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2024-04-12
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 3
- ISSN
- 1755-263X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4394750889
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 2.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Conservation Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Digital Access to Libraries (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (7703.01)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Keywords
- land use change, scale of analysis, indirect land use change, deforestation drivers, Greenhouse Gas Protocol, MapBiomas, Brazil, remote sensing, multi-scale monitoring
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