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Mirzha Hanifa

Benita Nathania

Abdullah Ahmad Nasution

The Forest Monitoring Story Behind a Cup of Gayo Coffee

To meet the global demand for Arabica coffee, effective monitoring systems are essential to both protect forests and ensure we can continue to enjoy Gayo coffee.

The Forest Monitoring Story Behind a Cup of Gayo Coffee | Forest Insights | Global Forest Watch Blog

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Ripe Cocoa pods from a cocoa farm in Ghana.

Data &amp; Tools

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<p>Martina Schneider is a GIS Analyst with Global Forest Watch. She supports the GFW team in preparing data and developing content for the GFW platform and web application.</p>



<p>As a graduate student, Martina specialized in applying GIS in the fields of environmental science and natural resources management. Specifically, she studied wildfire ecology and environmental factors that contribute to risk of ignition. In addition, Martina worked at Ducks Unlimited, the world's leader in wetland and waterfowl conservation, where she was part of a team updating the National Wetlands Inventory in Minnesota.</p>



<p>Martina holds an M.S. in Geographic Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University and a B.S. in Geography from Texas A&amp;M University.</p>



<p>She lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband and dog.</p>

Martina Schneider

Caroline Winchester

Sofia Tenorio Fenton

Liz Goldman

<p>The global demand for chocolate has had a significant impact on West African forests. Approximately 70% of the global supply of cocoa originates from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where production sites have replaced millions of hectares of forest. Between 2001 and 2015 alone, <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cocoa was linked to</a> the loss of a third of Ghana’s forest area and a quarter of Côte d’Ivoire’s.</p>



<p>The <a href="https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/initiative/cocoa-forests-initiative/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI)</a>, facilitated by World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the <a href="https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/cocoa-and-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)</a>, was established in 2017 in an effort to end cocoa-driven deforestation and restore forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting. To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create two new resources:*</p>



<ul>
<li>The <strong>West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC)</strong>, a database of mapped cocoa plot boundaries in the direct supply chains of participating companies that provides an extensive view of mapped cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The public version of the dataset is <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on Global Forest Watch (GFW)</a> as a cocoa plot heat map that further anonymizes data to protect the privacy of farmers and companies.</li>



<li>The <strong>Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA)</strong>, a map that provides a standardized view of cocoa-driven deforestation risk across the cocoa growing region of these two countries. The <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> is available for download on GFW.</li>
</ul>



<p>These resources are the result of an unprecedented collaboration among companies to share highly sensitive cocoa plot data, and an extensive ethics and legal review to ensure the protection of farmers’ data throughout the process. For the first time, companies and other stakeholders in the cocoa sector have a shared view of priority areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire for coordinated efforts toward a deforestation-free cocoa sector.</p>



<style>
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float: none !important;
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!important;
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</style>
<aside id="textbox"><em><b>From Palm Oil to Cocoa</b><p></p>
The development of the WAC and the Cocoa DRA builds on the success of similar products developed to support the palm oil sector: the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/improved-universal-mill-list-expands-partnerships-improves-transparency-in-palm-oil-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Universal Mill List (UML)</a>, a harmonized database of palm oil mill locations, and the <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/palm-risk-assessment-methodology-prioritizing-areas-landscapes-and-mills" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palm Risk Tool</a>, a method of identifying deforestation risks in their vicinity. However, differing supply chain dynamics between palm oil and cocoa were considered, such as:<li>
The locations of palm oil mills in the UML are represented as points while the cocoa plots in the WAC are represented by polygons. Further, the UML maps industrial scale infrastructure, whereas the WAC maps smallholder production. This raised additional privacy concerns, and steps were taken to avoid violating farmer privacy and safeguarding farmer livelihoods.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool analyzes deforestation risk by creating a buffer around each mill point to estimate a potential sourcing area. Oil palm fruit must be delivered to a mill quickly or the quality of the oil will decrease. This places a geographic constraint on how far oil palm fruit can travel to a mill, and stakeholders in the sector rely on a standardized sourcing radius of 50-km for their risk assessments. Cocoa does not have a geographic constraint nor an agreed upon estimation of a sourcing area, meaning that cocoa collected at a central point of purchase could have been grown anywhere in these two countries.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool was developed to assess deforestation risks in the vicinity of a specific type of infrastructure: palm oil mills. The Cocoa DRA was developed to be more flexible, enabling analysis of multiple areas of interest such as the plots in the WAC, cooperatives or other types of collection points and/or warehouses.<ul>

</em> </aside>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1175" height="783" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg" alt="Cocoa pod" class="wp-image-16723" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg 1175w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1175px) 100vw, 1175px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cocoa pod. Credit: Caroline Winchester, WRI.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>What is the West Africa</strong> <strong>Cocoa dataset?</strong></h2>



<p>The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC) aggregates data from 2021 on cocoa plot locations (a cocoa plot is a subset of a cocoa farm, and a single farm may be represented by multiple plots) in the direct supply chains of 19 cocoa and chocolate companies operating in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Project participants developed and agreed on a data collation protocol and data sharing agreement that outlined submission requirements and the procedure for cleaning and aggregating individual company data sets. To be included in the WAC, each plot had to be current, actively growing cocoa and occupying a single parcel of land. WRI then reviewed, cleaned and aggregated the data.</p>



<p>While the cocoa plot polygon data is considered sensitive and will not be available publicly (see more below), we visualized the data as a heat map, <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on GFW</a>, which avoids disclosing the precise boundaries of the plots in the WAC while giving users access to information on the approximate location of cocoa plots. Additionally, we distributed the plot data to impartial research institutions for use as training data to create derivative products; specifically, public cocoa production extent maps.</p>



<p>These strategies make the data publicly available to support companies and other users in more robust cocoa mapping and monitoring while safeguarding the privacy of individual farmers.</p>



<style>
.css-19vc5o2 aside {
   width: 100% !important;
float: none !important;
margin-left:
0px
!important;
}
</style>
<aside id="textbox"><em><b>Protecting the Privacy of Cocoa Farmers and Companies</b><p></p>

The raw data used to create the WAC included sensitive supply chain information from both companies and farmers. Cocoa is primarily grown by smallholder farmers who live near the cocoa plots they manage. A public release of this raw data would show the boundaries of specific cocoa plots and could allow individual farmers and their homes to be identified. Further, since there are over 2 million farmers across West Africa, it is difficult to know whether they are all fully aware of how data pertaining to them is being used. <br><br>
To protect farmer and company privacy, the WAC data collection protocol and data sharing agreement were informed by an ethics review to ensure that potentially sensitive information was respected and handled properly, and by a legal review to ensure the data privacy laws of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were followed. Based off these reviews, and in order to protect farmer privacy, no personal data was included in the WAC or shared with WRI, and a secure method of transferring data among all parties was established. With farmer privacy in mind, the parties involved also decided that precise locations of cocoa plot boundaries would not be made publicly available.

</em> </aside>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment?</h2>



<p>The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA) is a map that assesses the risk of future deforestation due to new or expanding cocoa production. The Cocoa DRA aligns various methods for assessing risk to provide a standardized view that companies and other stakeholders can use to make decisions around reducing deforestation. It can be used to proactively and efficiently identify deforestation risk across a supply chain that includes tens of thousands of geographically dispersed producers. Once risk has been identified, Cocoa DRA users can implement interventions for promoting sustainable production, protecting remaining forest cover and improving farmer livelihoods.</p>



<p>To create the map, we analyzed spatial variables that influence cocoa-linked deforestation including recent forest loss, proximity to cocoa, accessibility and suitability for cocoa production. The present-day extent of natural forest was approximated using the University of Maryland’s <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1244693" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tree canopy cover</a> data set and removing cocoa plots mapped in the WAC, <a href="https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1211/2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">other data sets</a> that <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/spatial-database-planted-trees-sdpt-version-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">map planted trees</a> and historic tree cover loss.</p>



<p>Primary and intact forests in West Africa are limited, so to ensure the Cocoa DRA comprehensively assesses where future cocoa-linked deforestation is likely to occur in <em>all</em> natural forests, its scope includes natural forests both inside and outside of protected areas as well as naturally regenerating forests.</p>



<p>The Cocoa DRA translates risk into five priority rankings at a 1-km resolution (high, mid-high, medium, mid-low and low priority) indicating the likelihood of future deforestation associated with cocoa production. Cocoa DRA users can assess risk at different scales, including groups of farms, supply sheds around cocoa bean collection points and other types of landscapes.</p>



<p>Users can download the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> on GFW.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What have we learned from the WAC and Cocoa DRA?</h2>



<p>Across Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the WAC maps 840,000 unique cocoa plots in 2021. Though cocoa plots tend to be small (most plots were between 1 to 2 hectares), the plots included in the WAC cover approximately 1.5 million hectares of planted cocoa area.</p>



<p>Cocoa plot data is most comprehensive in western Côte d’Ivoire as well as near the shared border between Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The forests in these areas have been <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">particularly impacted by cocoa production</a>. We found that the Cocoa DRA showed that these same regions had a significant amount of high priority areas (areas with higher likelihood of future cocoa-related deforestation). This is most evident in Côte d’Ivoire near the border of Liberia, while in western Ghana the landscape is more mixed.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1430" height="868" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority map for 2023" class="wp-image-16731" style="aspect-ratio:1.6474654377880185;width:840px;height:auto" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png 1430w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-1024x622.png 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-768x466.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px" /></figure>



<p>While creating the Cocoa DRA, we found that proximity to recent loss was an important predictor of future deforestation risk. The influence of this variable is most evident in several high-interest protected areas where, presumably due to effective legal protection, forest loss has been prevented in their boundaries. Because these forests have experienced less loss compared to the surrounding landscape, this resulted in a low priority ranking for the areas.</p>



<p>A good example of this is Taï National Park in western Côte d’Ivoire, which contains the only remaining intact forest within the study area. This is notable because the park is located within a region of Côte d’Ivoire where forests have been significantly impacted by cocoa production. A similar example is Bia National Park in western Ghana, which contains primary forest that has experienced low rates of forest loss compared to the surrounding landscape.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="2048" height="1448" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority ranking map (2023) showing protected areas" class="wp-image-16750" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png 2048w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-1024x724.png 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-768x543.png 768w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-1536x1086.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /></figure>



<p>That being said, additional data on legal status and conservation value provides important contextual information and we recommend users consider this data when using the Cocoa DRA for prioritizing engagement activities and supply chain interventions. &nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Driving collective action: How companies and others can use the WAC and Cocoa DRA</h2>



<p>Used together, the WAC and the Cocoa DRA can inform decision making and coordinated action to reduce cocoa-driven deforestation. These resources also have utility beyond the scope of the CFI. For example, the public WAC heat map of cocoa plots may be used alongside near-real-time alerts to identify deforestation in cocoa production landscapes, or as a resource to collectively assess the industry’s progress towards ending deforestation. Use of the WAC as training data to develop public cocoa extent maps will also shed light on production across West Africa. Such accessible and holistic extent data is essential for stakeholders striving to tackle cocoa-driven deforestation.</p>



<p>For companies and farmers seeking to comply with the EUDR, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can also be valuable tools. The risk map can enable companies and other stakeholders to identify high-priority landscapes and prevent deforestation before it happens. To achieve this, engagement with farmers in high priority areas will be needed, enabling them to protect remaining forests while safeguarding their livelihoods. The risk map and WAC can also help companies determine where to prioritize further cocoa plot data collection efforts. High priority areas where the WAC shows a lack of mapped cocoa plots is a good indication of where such efforts are needed for enabling compliance with the EUDR’s geolocation requirement. This data will also be key for enabling inclusion of smallholder farmers in the EU market.</p>



<p>As public resources that provide stakeholders with a shared understanding of where it’s most urgent to address deforestation while respecting farmer privacy, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can help realize a more sustainable cocoa sector. Through this collective knowledge, stakeholders can more easily form collaborative approaches to eliminate cocoa-driven deforestation. Furthermore, through ongoing updates based on best available data, both resources can remain a public good and contribute to transparent monitoring of the cocoa sector.</p>



<small><em>* Development of these products was also informed by preliminary research carried out by Climate Focus on other methods of assessing deforestation risk associated cocoa.</small></em><br><br>



<style type="text/css"></style>

Ending Deforestation from Cocoa in West Africa with New Data-Driven Resources

<p>The global demand for chocolate has had a significant impact on West African forests. Approximately 70% of the global supply of cocoa originates from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where production sites have replaced millions of hectares of forest. Between 2001 and 2015 alone, <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cocoa was linked to</a> the loss of a third of Ghana’s forest area and a quarter of Côte d’Ivoire’s.</p>



<p>The <a href="https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/initiative/cocoa-forests-initiative/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa &amp; Forests Initiative (CFI)</a>, facilitated by World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the <a href="https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/cocoa-and-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)</a>, was established in 2017 in an effort to end cocoa-driven deforestation and restore forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting. To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create two new resources:*</p>



<ul>
<li>The <strong>West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC)</strong>, a database of mapped cocoa plot boundaries in the direct supply chains of participating companies that provides an extensive view of mapped cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The public version of the dataset is <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on Global Forest Watch (GFW)</a> as a cocoa plot heat map that further anonymizes data to protect the privacy of farmers and companies.</li>



<li>The <strong>Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA)</strong>, a map that provides a standardized view of cocoa-driven deforestation risk across the cocoa growing region of these two countries. The <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> is available for download on GFW.</li>
</ul>



<p>These resources are the result of an unprecedented collaboration among companies to share highly sensitive cocoa plot data, and an extensive ethics and legal review to ensure the protection of farmers’ data throughout the process. For the first time, companies and other stakeholders in the cocoa sector have a shared view of priority areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire for coordinated efforts toward a deforestation-free cocoa sector.</p>



<style>
.css-19vc5o2 aside {
   width: 100% !important;
float: none !important;
margin-left:
0px
!important;
}
</style>
<aside id="textbox"><em><b>From Palm Oil to Cocoa</b><p></p>
The development of the WAC and the Cocoa DRA builds on the success of similar products developed to support the palm oil sector: the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/improved-universal-mill-list-expands-partnerships-improves-transparency-in-palm-oil-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Universal Mill List (UML)</a>, a harmonized database of palm oil mill locations, and the <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/palm-risk-assessment-methodology-prioritizing-areas-landscapes-and-mills" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palm Risk Tool</a>, a method of identifying deforestation risks in their vicinity. However, differing supply chain dynamics between palm oil and cocoa were considered, such as:<li>
The locations of palm oil mills in the UML are represented as points while the cocoa plots in the WAC are represented by polygons. Further, the UML maps industrial scale infrastructure, whereas the WAC maps smallholder production. This raised additional privacy concerns, and steps were taken to avoid violating farmer privacy and safeguarding farmer livelihoods.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool analyzes deforestation risk by creating a buffer around each mill point to estimate a potential sourcing area. Oil palm fruit must be delivered to a mill quickly or the quality of the oil will decrease. This places a geographic constraint on how far oil palm fruit can travel to a mill, and stakeholders in the sector rely on a standardized sourcing radius of 50-km for their risk assessments. Cocoa does not have a geographic constraint nor an agreed upon estimation of a sourcing area, meaning that cocoa collected at a central point of purchase could have been grown anywhere in these two countries.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool was developed to assess deforestation risks in the vicinity of a specific type of infrastructure: palm oil mills. The Cocoa DRA was developed to be more flexible, enabling analysis of multiple areas of interest such as the plots in the WAC, cooperatives or other types of collection points and/or warehouses.<ul>

</em> </aside>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg" alt="Cocoa pod" class="wp-image-16723"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cocoa pod. Credit: Caroline Winchester, WRI.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>What is the West Africa</strong> <strong>Cocoa dataset?</strong></h2>



<p>The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC) aggregates data from 2021 on cocoa plot locations (a cocoa plot is a subset of a cocoa farm, and a single farm may be represented by multiple plots) in the direct supply chains of 19 cocoa and chocolate companies operating in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Project participants developed and agreed on a data collation protocol and data sharing agreement that outlined submission requirements and the procedure for cleaning and aggregating individual company data sets. To be included in the WAC, each plot had to be current, actively growing cocoa and occupying a single parcel of land. WRI then reviewed, cleaned and aggregated the data.</p>



<p>While the cocoa plot polygon data is considered sensitive and will not be available publicly (see more below), we visualized the data as a heat map, <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on GFW</a>, which avoids disclosing the precise boundaries of the plots in the WAC while giving users access to information on the approximate location of cocoa plots. Additionally, we distributed the plot data to impartial research institutions for use as training data to create derivative products; specifically, public cocoa production extent maps.</p>



<p>These strategies make the data publicly available to support companies and other users in more robust cocoa mapping and monitoring while safeguarding the privacy of individual farmers.</p>



<style>
.css-19vc5o2 aside {
   width: 100% !important;
float: none !important;
margin-left:
0px
!important;
}
</style>
<aside id="textbox"><em><b>Protecting the Privacy of Cocoa Farmers and Companies</b><p></p>

The raw data used to create the WAC included sensitive supply chain information from both companies and farmers. Cocoa is primarily grown by smallholder farmers who live near the cocoa plots they manage. A public release of this raw data would show the boundaries of specific cocoa plots and could allow individual farmers and their homes to be identified. Further, since there are over 2 million farmers across West Africa, it is difficult to know whether they are all fully aware of how data pertaining to them is being used. <br><br>
To protect farmer and company privacy, the WAC data collection protocol and data sharing agreement were informed by an ethics review to ensure that potentially sensitive information was respected and handled properly, and by a legal review to ensure the data privacy laws of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were followed. Based off these reviews, and in order to protect farmer privacy, no personal data was included in the WAC or shared with WRI, and a secure method of transferring data among all parties was established. With farmer privacy in mind, the parties involved also decided that precise locations of cocoa plot boundaries would not be made publicly available.

</em> </aside>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment?</h2>



<p>The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA) is a map that assesses the risk of future deforestation due to new or expanding cocoa production. The Cocoa DRA aligns various methods for assessing risk to provide a standardized view that companies and other stakeholders can use to make decisions around reducing deforestation. It can be used to proactively and efficiently identify deforestation risk across a supply chain that includes tens of thousands of geographically dispersed producers. Once risk has been identified, Cocoa DRA users can implement interventions for promoting sustainable production, protecting remaining forest cover and improving farmer livelihoods.</p>



<p>To create the map, we analyzed spatial variables that influence cocoa-linked deforestation including recent forest loss, proximity to cocoa, accessibility and suitability for cocoa production. The present-day extent of natural forest was approximated using the University of Maryland’s <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1244693" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tree canopy cover</a> data set and removing cocoa plots mapped in the WAC, <a href="https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1211/2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">other data sets</a> that <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/spatial-database-planted-trees-sdpt-version-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">map planted trees</a> and historic tree cover loss.</p>



<p>Primary and intact forests in West Africa are limited, so to ensure the Cocoa DRA comprehensively assesses where future cocoa-linked deforestation is likely to occur in <em>all</em> natural forests, its scope includes natural forests both inside and outside of protected areas as well as naturally regenerating forests.</p>



<p>The Cocoa DRA translates risk into five priority rankings at a 1-km resolution (high, mid-high, medium, mid-low and low priority) indicating the likelihood of future deforestation associated with cocoa production. Cocoa DRA users can assess risk at different scales, including groups of farms, supply sheds around cocoa bean collection points and other types of landscapes.</p>



<p>Users can download the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> on GFW.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What have we learned from the WAC and Cocoa DRA?</h2>



<p>Across Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the WAC maps 840,000 unique cocoa plots in 2021. Though cocoa plots tend to be small (most plots were between 1 to 2 hectares), the plots included in the WAC cover approximately 1.5 million hectares of planted cocoa area.</p>



<p>Cocoa plot data is most comprehensive in western Côte d’Ivoire as well as near the shared border between Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The forests in these areas have been <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">particularly impacted by cocoa production</a>. We found that the Cocoa DRA showed that these same regions had a significant amount of high priority areas (areas with higher likelihood of future cocoa-related deforestation). This is most evident in Côte d’Ivoire near the border of Liberia, while in western Ghana the landscape is more mixed.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority map for 2023" class="wp-image-16731" style="aspect-ratio:1.6474654377880185;width:840px;height:auto"/></figure>



<p>While creating the Cocoa DRA, we found that proximity to recent loss was an important predictor of future deforestation risk. The influence of this variable is most evident in several high-interest protected areas where, presumably due to effective legal protection, forest loss has been prevented in their boundaries. Because these forests have experienced less loss compared to the surrounding landscape, this resulted in a low priority ranking for the areas.</p>



<p>A good example of this is Taï National Park in western Côte d’Ivoire, which contains the only remaining intact forest within the study area. This is notable because the park is located within a region of Côte d’Ivoire where forests have been significantly impacted by cocoa production. A similar example is Bia National Park in western Ghana, which contains primary forest that has experienced low rates of forest loss compared to the surrounding landscape.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority ranking map (2023) showing protected areas" class="wp-image-16750"/></figure>



<p>That being said, additional data on legal status and conservation value provides important contextual information and we recommend users consider this data when using the Cocoa DRA for prioritizing engagement activities and supply chain interventions. &nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Driving collective action: How companies and others can use the WAC and Cocoa DRA</h2>



<p>Used together, the WAC and the Cocoa DRA can inform decision making and coordinated action to reduce cocoa-driven deforestation. These resources also have utility beyond the scope of the CFI. For example, the public WAC heat map of cocoa plots may be used alongside near-real-time alerts to identify deforestation in cocoa production landscapes, or as a resource to collectively assess the industry’s progress towards ending deforestation. Use of the WAC as training data to develop public cocoa extent maps will also shed light on production across West Africa. Such accessible and holistic extent data is essential for stakeholders striving to tackle cocoa-driven deforestation.</p>



<p>For companies and farmers seeking to comply with the EUDR, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can also be valuable tools. The risk map can enable companies and other stakeholders to identify high-priority landscapes and prevent deforestation before it happens. To achieve this, engagement with farmers in high priority areas will be needed, enabling them to protect remaining forests while safeguarding their livelihoods. The risk map and WAC can also help companies determine where to prioritize further cocoa plot data collection efforts. High priority areas where the WAC shows a lack of mapped cocoa plots is a good indication of where such efforts are needed for enabling compliance with the EUDR’s geolocation requirement. This data will also be key for enabling inclusion of smallholder farmers in the EU market.</p>



<p>As public resources that provide stakeholders with a shared understanding of where it’s most urgent to address deforestation while respecting farmer privacy, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can help realize a more sustainable cocoa sector. Through this collective knowledge, stakeholders can more easily form collaborative approaches to eliminate cocoa-driven deforestation. Furthermore, through ongoing updates based on best available data, both resources can remain a public good and contribute to transparent monitoring of the cocoa sector.</p>



<small><em>* Development of these products was also informed by preliminary research carried out by Climate Focus on other methods of assessing deforestation risk associated cocoa.</small></em><br><br>



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Two new data-driven resources provide a shared view of priority areas in West Africa and can help realize a a deforestation-free cocoa sector.

Ending Deforestation from Cocoa in West Africa | GFW Blog

forest quality

forest quality | Global Forest Watch Blog

logging

logging | Global Forest Watch Blog

policy

policy | Global Forest Watch Blog

Sarah Carter

Fred Stolle

Tina Schneider

Ruth Nogueron

Monitoring Forest Degradation for the EU Deforestation Regulation Using GFW

Under the EUDR, wood products entering the EU market must be degradation-free. Tools like GFW can help companies monitor for degradation.

Monitoring Forest Degradation for the EUDR | GFW Blog

Anne Rosenbarger

<p><em>This blog is part 1 in a two-part series, and explores how GFW data can help monitor for </em><strong><em>deforestation</em></strong><em> under the EUDR. <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/">Read part 2 on </a></em><strong><a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/"><em>degradation</em></a></strong><em><a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/"> here</a>.</em> </p>



<p>In May 2023, the European Union (EU) adopted a regulation that aims to prevent products and commodities linked to deforestation and forest degradation from being sold in the EU, thereby supporting global efforts to mitigate climate change such as the Paris Agreement and pledges to halt deforestation and degradation made at COP26. Under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), companies must show that commodities placed on the EU market are deforestation- or degradation-free.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The EUDR has a cut-off-date of December 31, 2020, meaning that products and commodities linked to deforestation or forest degradation after that date are not permitted in EU markets. The commodities required to be <em>deforestation-</em>free are cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy and rubber, as well as derived products such as beef and chocolate. Wood and derived products such as furniture must also be <em>degradation-</em>free<em>. </em>(Although rubber is included with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] definition of a forest, under the EUDR it is considered an agricultural commodity and as such is required to be deforestation- rather than degradation-free.)&nbsp;</p>



<p>To ensure all covered commodities — both imported and domestically produced — are in compliance with the regulation, companies need to monitor supply chains globally to cover any area where commodities that enter the EU market are sourced. The EUDR requires suppliers to provide the geocoordinates of plots of land where relevant commodities and products were produced, and to provide due diligence information for all these locations.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In this blog, we explore the regulation and describe relevant data and tools — specifically those available on Global Forest Watch (GFW) — that companies, governments and others can use to establish whether commodities are deforestation-free, while highlighting areas where new data can improve assessments in the future. We discuss how satellite data can support three monitoring needs: 1. Setting a forest baseline; 2. Tracking deforestation; 3. Mapping commodities.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Before discussing these monitoring needs, we first explore why satellite data is useful. &nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why is satellite data important for monitoring the EUDR?</h2>



<aside id="textbox"> <div><em><b>Sources of satellite data: GFW, GFW Pro and the EU Forest Observatory</b><p></p>The EUDR does not prescribe the use of any specific forest reference data set or platform. Available public maps don’t have legal value, but they can help companies comply with this regulation in assessing deforestation risk – though companies must carry out due diligence as outlined in the regulation.<br><br>

One data platform, GFW Pro, was designed with leading companies and financial institutions to translate geospatial data into actionable insights. GFW Pro users can produce assessments for reporting against commitments and policies based on free and open GFW data. User-friendly workflows guide users to produce reports for their supply chain. Reports can be produced for any location and partners can access secure systems with their user credentials to view reports and provide updated information into the system. GFW Pro has already been used by companies to assess compliance with voluntary commitments and will soon support EUDR compliance assessments. <br><br>

At the same time, new data on forests is being developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, and like all new data sets, this will be considered for integration into GFW to ensure the best data is available to GFW users. <br><br>

The JRC is also developing the EU Forest Observatory to support the implementation of the EUDR by providing scientific evidence regarding global deforestation and forest degradation and related trade. JRC already provides a pan tropical data set on changes in tropical moist forest cover at 30-m resolution based on satellite data. In the future, JRC will integrate 10-m Sentinel satellite data and will provide a forest cover map for 2020 that will be made available on a dedicated web platform. Though promising, this data is not yet available, and there is not yet a precise date for the full operationalization of the Observatory. 
</em></div> </aside>



<p>Forest-related satellite data, such as that available on GFW,&nbsp;allows forests everywhere to be monitored remotely from anywhere in the world. Commodities included in the regulation span large areas, meaning it is not possible to visit every location on the ground. Additionally, historical satellite data shows the status of forests before the cut-off-date.</p>



<p>The EUDR provides definitions of <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32023R1115&qid=1686611894470" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">key concepts</a>, such as forest, deforestation and agriculture, which largely follow the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/global-forest-watch-and-the-forest-resources-assessment-explained-in-5-graphics-2/">United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) definitions</a>. Taken at face value, the definitions used in the EUDR and those used by satellite derived data do not exactly match up. Satellite derived tree cover data is based on biophysical metrics, such as tree height and canopy density, while FAO definitions also use land use criteria. Data users must take steps to match the definitions derived from satellite information to the definitions set out in the EUDR more closely, and we discuss these steps for three monitoring needs:</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Setting a forest baseline</h2>



<p>Understanding the extent of forests as of December 31, 2020, is crucial since the EUDR requires that commodities cannot be sourced from areas that were forested before the cut-off date. The EUDR defines “forest” as:<em> “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ, excluding land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.”</em></p>



<p>The <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InVtZC10cmVlLWhlaWdodCIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJ1bWQtdHJlZS1oZWlnaHQtMjAyMCJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">tree cover height data</a> available on GFW from the University of Maryland (UMD) is a reasonable proxy. This global data set shows the height of trees (defined as woody vegetation) taller than 3 m within 30-m pixels in the years 2000 and 2020. To better match the EUDR definition, one can apply a 5-m threshold for tree cover height and set a 0.5 hectare minimum mapping unit to the 2020 data, which aligns with the regulation cut-off date. This data only includes tree cover with a canopy cover greater than approximately 23%, however, other data on canopy cover density is available for 2000 and 2010, so could be incorporated to account for lower canopy cover forests.</p>



<p>An even closer approximation of the EUDR’s definition of forest is the natural forest class from the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) <a href="https://www.landcarbonlab.org/news-updates/natural-lands-map-companies-no-conversion-targets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Natural Lands Map</a>, available on GFW Pro in the coming months. The Natural Lands Map, developed by SBTN and WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab, allows users to identify a baseline of natural forests as of 2020 because it removes <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtcGxhbnRhdGlvbnMiLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlLCJsYXllcnMiOlsidHJlZS1wbGFudGF0aW9ucyJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">plantations and tree crops</a>, as well as trees in urban areas, and integrates local data sources on natural forest where available. Forests are identified as areas greater than 0.5 hectares with trees at least 5 m in height. Companies can use the Natural Lands Map to understand&nbsp;if their production or sourcing activities have caused conversion since 2020 or if their future plans pose a risk of deforestation.</p>



<p>The EUDR definition of forest also includes land that does not currently have tree cover but where trees are able to reach the height and canopy cover thresholds set out in the definition — for example, areas where timber harvesting has left the land temporarily unstocked. This is difficult to map using biophysical metrics derived from satellite data, and as such, GFW’s <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/tree-cover-data-comparison/">tree cover height and tree canopy cover data sets</a> and the SBTN natural forest class do not capture land that does not currently have tree cover. Future research using historical tree cover data and the non-natural forest class from the Natural Lands Map could assist in identifying these areas. GFW provides tree cover information from 2000, annual losses thereafter, and gain for specific intervals (e.g., 2000-2020), also at 30 m x 30 m pixels, so these data sets could be used in this context.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Tracking deforestation</h2>



<p>The EUDR defines deforestation as<em>: “the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not.”</em> In the context of the regulation, cattle grazing, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber and soy are considered to be agricultural land use, while timber is not (conversion of natural forest for timber can instead lead to degradation, which is also covered by the EUDR but is outside of the scope of this blog).</p>



<p>The <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtY292ZXItbG9zcyIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJ0cmVlLWNvdmVyLWxvc3MiXX0seyJkYXRhc2V0IjoicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiZGlzcHV0ZWQtcG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyJdLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlfV19&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">tree cover loss data set</a> from UMD and available on GFW, provided annually at 30-m resolution, is widely used to assess change in forest cover. Novel data sets such as GFW’s near-real-time <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6ImludGVncmF0ZWQtZGVmb3Jlc3RhdGlvbi1hbGVydHMtOGJpdCIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJpbnRlZ3JhdGVkLWRlZm9yZXN0YXRpb24tYWxlcnRzLThiaXQiXX0seyJkYXRhc2V0IjoicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiZGlzcHV0ZWQtcG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyJdLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlfV19&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">integrated deforestation alerts</a> can also enable continuous monitoring and early notifications on possible deforestation, which is important for enforcing the regulation. Combining this forest change data with the Natural Lands Map provides a timely indication of where forest loss is happening.</p>



<p>Neither of these data sets maps deforestation as defined by the regulation since they include some forest losses beyond conversion to the commodity crops listed in the EUDR (e.g., loss due to natural causes and loss of tree cover resulting from forestry activities such as timber harvesting and conversion to plantation forests). However, when combined with detailed commodity sourcing areas provided by companies, these data sets are a reasonable proxy for deforestation since those sourcing areas likely have active agricultural production. Visual assessments of high-resolution satellite images, such as those from Planet and available on GFW, can also be used to identify drivers of deforestation.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mapping commodities</h2>



<p>GFW also has a number of data sets that can help identify which losses are linked to agricultural conversion in the absence of detailed sourcing information. For example, <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtY292ZXItbG9zcy1ieS1kb21pbmFudC1kcml2ZXIiLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlLCJsYXllcnMiOlsidHJlZS1jb3Zlci1sb3NzLWJ5LWRvbWluYW50LWRyaXZlciJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">dominant drivers of tree cover loss</a> and <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InVtZC1zb3ktcGxhbnRlZC1hcmVhIiwib3BhY2l0eSI6MSwidmlzaWJpbGl0eSI6dHJ1ZSwibGF5ZXJzIjpbInVtZC1zb3ktcGxhbnRlZC1hcmVhIl19LHsiZGF0YXNldCI6InBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIiwibGF5ZXJzIjpbImRpc3B1dGVkLXBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIiwicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiXSwib3BhY2l0eSI6MSwidmlzaWJpbGl0eSI6dHJ1ZX1dfQ%3D%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">soy planted area</a>.</p>



<aside id="textbox"> <div><em><b>Supporting traceability assessments</b><br><br>Maps of commodities are also useful in support of traceability assessments. To comply with the EUDR, companies first need to trace each unit purchased to a production area. However, supply chains are often large, fluid and complex — particularly when trying to trace back to individual farm levels. Crop maps can help identify where crops are grown and can help verify commodity sourcing location claims, but this is not necessarily straightforward, and additional work must be done to differentiate individual property boundaries, ownership, legal status and supply chain linkages. Indeed, deforestation is just one part of the regulation, which also states that commodities must also be compliant with all relevant applicable laws in force in the country of production (for example, labor laws). These elements will be additional challenges for commodity producers to monitor.
</em></div> </aside>



<p>Maps of commodities can also be useful to verify the geolocation of sourcing areas provided by companies, however, there are several gaps in availability. Many maps are regional; for example, information on cocoa is only available for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00751-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">certain countries</a>, while others have dates preceding the regulation cut-off-date, such as oil palm.</p>



<p>GFW is continuously providing updates to commodity maps and deforestation drivers information. Where commodity data is not available, visual assessments of high-resolution data imagery such as <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJiYXNlbWFwIjp7InZhbHVlIjoicGxhbmV0IiwiY29sb3IiOiIiLCJuYW1lIjoicGxhbmV0X21lZHJlc19ub3JtYWxpemVkX2FuYWx5dGljXzIwMjMtMDVfbW9zYWljIiwiaW1hZ2VUeXBlIjoiYW5hbHl0aWMifSwiZGF0YXNldHMiOlt7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">Planet</a> or similar data can also be used to assess accuracy for locations given by commodity providers to verify that the areas they are sourcing from were already agricultural areas and should not be considered forest.</p>



<p>For example, oil palm has a distinctive star-shaped pattern that is easily identifiable when visually interpreting this high-resolution data. However, it may be necessary to do an on-the-ground visit to areas where good high-resolution data is not available, such as due to cloud cover or where the land use is not clear in the image. Specifically, tree crops covered by the EUDR such as cocoa can be difficult to distinguish from natural forest cover since they are often grown under the canopy of natural forests, which is captured in the satellite images.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The EUDR and beyond</h2>



<p>Enforcement of the EUDR is an important step toward the protection of the world’s forests, and assessments against these requirements can be used to ensure that only deforestation-free commodities are entering the EU market. Although there are challenges to linking satellite data with the requirements of regulations such as the EUDR, a combination of open data sets and tools such as the tree cover loss data, the Natural Lands Map and GFW Pro can be used for transparent reporting against deforestation-free requirements.</p>



<p>However, there are still other challenges related to the EUDR.</p>



<p>Firstly, sellers in the EU market are expected to adopt potentially challenging and expensive monitoring approaches. Sufficient support must be provided to ensure that livelihoods — such as those of the many smallholder farmers and economies relying on these transactions — are protected. GFW’s free and easy-to-use platform makes monitoring data and tools available to those producers, and therefore is an important part of a set of programs and incentives that can support smallholders and prevent them from being excluded from the market.</p>



<p>Secondly, deforestation should be avoided in all forests, not just in areas where deforestation is linked to EU markets. The global nature of GFW’s data sets and the tailored monitoring approaches offered by GFW Pro pave the way for monitoring and enforcing other complimentary regulations and deforestation commitments.</p>



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3 Ways Global Forest Watch Can Support the EU Law on Deforestation-free Supply Chains

Companies and others can use satellite data to help establish whether commodities are deforestation-free as required under the EUDR.

3 Ways GFW Can Support EU Law on Deforestation-free Supply Chains | GFW Blog

amazon

amazon | Global Forest Watch Blog

soy | Global Forest Watch Blog

Mikaela Weisse

Luiz Amaral

<p>As a Strategic Solutions &amp; Engagement Specialist for Latin America, Luiz works with the Global Forest Watch team to expand GFW´s uptake and impact across the region. Luiz supports the GFW team on the development of strategic business positioning with stakeholders from the private food and agriculture sector, governments, civil society organizations and other institutions.</p>



<p>Luiz has an extensive background in agricultural engineering and has worked in the Brazilian farming sector for 18 years. He focused on agricultural production systems in his early career, spending nine years working in sugar cane mills within the country´s northeast and southeast regions. Besides leading the agricultural activities, Luiz partnered with research institutions to promote innovative technologies and working practices to optimize agricultural productivity while also improving energy efficiency and reducing GHG emissions.</p>



<p>Prior to joining WRI, Luiz spent nine years as a Strategic Customer Manager in a multinational company where he managed distinct roles in the sales, environmental processes, safety and business development initiatives. Additionally, Luiz collaborated to build a cross-functional strategy for the company, designed to find synergies within different inner divisions such as crop-protection, sustainable solutions, industrial biosciences and safety, intended to foster lasting relationships with key agri-industrial clients.</p>



<p>Luiz holds a bachelor’s degree from University of São Paulo (ESALQ-USP), an MBA in Business Management from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), and an MSc in Sustainable Resources: Economics, Policy and Transitions from University College London (UCL). While at the UK, he also earned a Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Business, from University of Cambridge.</p>

Luiz Calado

<aside id="textbox"> <div><em>Tree cover loss does not always <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/data-methods" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equal deforestation</a>, as it is difficult to know whether the clearing will result in a permanent land use change. However, pairing the loss data with annual soy data allows us to confirm the land use change permanence and gets us closer to understanding true deforestation patterns. We refer to these changes as “forests replaced by soy”. There is also some disagreement about how well the tree cover loss data captures forests in some biomes. For example, in the Atlantic Forest biome in Brazil, the large presence of tree plantations in the same area as soy results in an overestimation of the area of forest replaced by soy. While in other regions without natural occurring trees, such as Pampas, results are underestimated. However, loss still indicates annual change trends and the level of threat experienced by these important ecosystems. GFW frequently reports on humid primary forest loss, however this analysis reports all tree cover loss to include the Chaco and Cerrado biomes as they are important habitats and soy growing regions in South America that are outside the humid tropics. Official Brazilian government deforestation data (PRODES) was not used as it did not allow for cross country comparisons. The statistics presented here represent tree cover that was eventually replaced by soy production areas regardless of whether it happened legally or illegally.</em></div> </aside>



<p>As global food demand increases so too does the potential destruction of natural ecosystems to accommodate growing commodity production. Understanding deforestation related to agriculture is essential to developing strategies that solve these challenges. Recent research from World Resources Institute shows that <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">8.2 million hectares</a> of forest were replaced by soy between 2001-2015 globally, of which 7.9 million hectares of conversion occurred in South America. Soy is also grown in large quantities in the United States, China and India, but in South America production is expanding into forests, threatening important ecosystems.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00729-z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New data</a> from Texas Tech University and University of Maryland, <a href="https://gfw.global/2ZObmQM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">available on GFW and GFW Pro</a>, enables anyone to see the extent of soy production within South America at a 30×30-meter resolution, per harvest year, from 2000 onward. To better understand the trends of soy production on the continent’s forests, we combined the new data with annual tree cover loss data and focused only on yearly soy expansion– new areas of soy planted per year from 2001 onward.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Annual tree cover loss within soy production areas" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-1-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<p>The dynamics of soy replacing forests in South America are complex because soy is often planted several years after tree cover is initially cleared. During the interim period land can be used for other purposes, typically pasture for grazing cattle. We classify the impacts of soy production as follows:</p>



<ul><li>Soy can have a direct impact on forests when land is cleared and immediately converted to soy production. We consider any forest loss that occurred three years before soy establishment as immediate conversion.</li><li>Soy can have a delayed impact when forests are cleared and used for other purposes for several years (three or more years for our analysis) prior to soy establishment. <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Our previous analysis</a> shows that between 2001-2015 in South America, soy directly converted 3.9 million hectares of forest and had a delayed impact on the remaining 4.0 million hectares.</li><li>Just like any other crop, soy could also be a driver of indirect land displacement. As the area of available land is finite, land use change in one area could be indirectly linked to land use changes elsewhere. Our analysis cannot quantify the impact of indirect land displacement.</li></ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Soy Expansion Threatens Ecosystems Beyond the Brazilian Amazon</h2>



<p>Historically, expansion of soy production in the Brazilian Amazon has faced intense public scrutiny, prompting action by both public and private sector actors. For example, <a href="https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Policy-Brief-Part-I-How-to-Navigate-the-Complexity.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brazil’s Forest Code</a> directs farmers in the Amazon to set aside 80% of their property as a forest reserve, and under the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/soy-moratorium-averted-new-jersey-size-loss-of-amazon-rainforest-study/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Soy Moratorium</a>, traders agreed not to purchase soy grown on land cleared after 2008. However, in 2019 just 14% of all expansion across South America occurred in the Amazon. Our analysis shows that soy expansion has also impacted other important ecosystems that have received less attention.</p>



<div class="flourish-embed" data-src="story/1046368?163031"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" width="100%">Each box outlined in black denotes the total soy expansion in each region in 2019. Gray is new soy expansion in areas that weren’t forested in 2000, yellow represents direct forest conversion (less than three years between conversion and soy expansion) and blue represents delayed use of cleared forest land for soy (up to 20 years between conversion and soy expansion.</div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">In Brazil Forest Area Replaced by Soy in the Cerrado is Comparable to the Amazon</h2>



<p>Situated south of the Amazon, the <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/nt0704" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cerrado is the most biodiverse savanna ecosystem in the world</a>. Land use planning and scientific advancements during the 1980s and 1990s transformed the Cerrado into an agricultural powerhouse for soy, cattle, and other commodities at the expense of millions of hectares of forests and native vegetation. Over the last 20 years the extent of soy production in this biome has more than doubled, and in 2019 a third of the entire South American soy planted area was located in the Cerrado.</p>



<p>Environmental protections in the Cerrado are <a href="https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Policy-Brief-Part-I-How-to-Navigate-the-Complexity.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">less strict than in the Amazon</a>, and both biomes have experienced comparable total forest area replaced by soy over the last 20 years. Furthermore, the amount of direct forest conversion to soy in the Cerrado is almost twice as high as the Amazon, where large quantities of soy are still being planted on land where forest was cleared more than 15 years ago.</p>



<p>Rates of direct annual conversion have trended downward over the last several years, but delayed conversion has been relatively stable. Even if not a direct attribution, such delayed effect is relevant as studies have <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab003a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">demonstrated</a> that expectations of future increase in land’s value, which occurs when an area is converted to agriculture, have impacts on decisions to deforest. Even if soy does not occupy the land right after it is deforested, the expectation that it could do so in the future can also be considered a driver of deforestation.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog_Graphic-3-2.png" width="100%">Each column represents the total area of soy expansion in each harvest year. Yellow represents the proportion of that yearly expansion taking place in areas recently deforested and blue in areas that were forested more than three years before soy expansion happened.</div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Direct&nbsp;Conversion of&nbsp;Forests to&nbsp;Soy&nbsp;is&nbsp;Decreasing in Argentina, but&nbsp;Not&nbsp;Fast&nbsp;Enough</h2>



<p>Only a very small share of soy production in Argentina has come at the expense of forests as the crop is primarily grown in the Pampas grasslands. However, due to the considerable extent of land area occupied by soy across the country, Argentina is still second to Brazil in terms of total forest area replaced by soy. Soy primarily replaced forests in the northwestern portion of the country, where soy expansion threatens forests and other native vegetation in the <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146731/deforestation-in-argentinas-gran-chaco" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gran Chaco</a>. This highly biodiverse ecosystem is the largest dry forest in South America and a prominent frontier of agricultural expansion.</p>



<p>During the last ten years in Argentina the extent of forest area replaced by soy per year has more than halved, and during the same time period the area of direct conversion of forests to soy also plummeted, falling from 87,000 to 12,000 hectares in 2019. However, the declining rate of direct forest conversion has not kept pace with the declining area of overall soy expansion, which has fallen at a much faster rate.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Rate of Argentinian soy expansion is falling faster than rate of direct conversion of forests to soy" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-4-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Soy&nbsp;Production&nbsp;in Paraguay&nbsp;Remains Concentrated&nbsp;in the Atlantic Forest</h2>



<p>Paraguay is home to two key forested ecosystems: the Chaco in the west and the Atlantic Forest in the east. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and one of the most endangered as current forest cover is only a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/12/photo-essay-paraguays-last-remaining-remnant-of-intact-atlantic-forest/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fraction of what it once was</a>. This biome is where soy expansion has primarily replaced forests, and our analysis shows that direct conversion of forests to soy in this biome has trended downward over the last several years, falling from a peak of 22,000 hectares in 2013 to 5,000 hectares in 2019. However, the Atlantic Forest in Paraguay is protected by a Zero Deforestation Law, passed in 2004 in response to high rates of deforestation in the early 2000s. Direct conversion of forests to soy should not be taking place in this biome at all and are, by definition, illegal.</p>



<p>As available land in the east shrinks, concerns about agriculture creeping into the Chaco have grown. However, our analysis found that while the area of planted soy in western Paraguay has increased over the last 20 years, overall soy production in Paraguay remains concentrated in the east, accounting for approximately 98% of all soy planted across the country in 2019. Likewise, forest area replaced by soy is concentrated in eastern Paraguay, and in 2019, 86% of forest replaced by soy in Paraguay was located in this region of the country. Soy cannot yet be considered a significant direct driver of deforestation in the Paraguayan Chaco, and conversion of forests is mainly linked to other commodities.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Soy&nbsp;Replacing&nbsp;Forest&nbsp;in&nbsp;Bolivia&nbsp;Creates a&nbsp;New&nbsp;Hotspot of&nbsp;Deforestation</h2>



<p>Although Bolivia produces&nbsp;far&nbsp;less soy than its neighbors, the expansion&nbsp;of soy production&nbsp;is largely occurring at the expense of forests. In 2019,&nbsp;soy&nbsp;replaced&nbsp;49,000 hectares of forest, accounting for 80% of the entire&nbsp;soy&nbsp;expansion&nbsp;area&nbsp;in the country. Direct pressure on forests is high as well, and during the same year,&nbsp;soy directly&nbsp;converted&nbsp;22,000 hectares of&nbsp;forest.&nbsp;This area is comparable to other regions where&nbsp;the overall extent of&nbsp;soy&nbsp;expansion is much higher.&nbsp;For&nbsp;comparison,&nbsp;in 2019, 29,000 hectares of forest in the Brazilian Amazon was&nbsp;directly&nbsp;converted for soy expansion and&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;Cerrado&nbsp;40,000 hectares of forest was converted.</p>



<p>In 2020 the country was among <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/top-ten-lists" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the top ten countries for humid tropical primary forest loss</a>. Soy is largely replacing forests in the Chiquitano Dry Forests, a <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/nt0212" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unique transitionary biome</a> situated between the Amazon and drier forests of the Chaco. If nothing changes, it’s likely that deforestation will continue to increase, placing all three biomes at risk.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Direct conversion in 2019 harvest year is comparable between Bolivia, the Amazon and the Cerrado" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-5-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sustainable&nbsp;Soy&nbsp;Production&nbsp;Will&nbsp;Require&nbsp;a&nbsp;Holistic&nbsp;Approach</h2>



<p>Focusing sustainability efforts on a single commodity does not fully address the challenges of deforestation in South America, and the indirect impact of soy on forests may be larger than what our analysis shows because of its links to other commodities. Soy often replaces pasture because cattle grazing is typically the activity that first occupies land once forests are cleared. Between 2000 and 2015, 45.1 million hectares of forest was replaced by pasture globally, over five times that of soy. Soy is also an important source of animal feed, primarily for poultry and pork, as well as also aquaculture. Further, the value of forests areas, pasture areas and cropland changes over time, meaning that the expectation of land value increases with crop expansion is a key driver of deforestation as well.</p>



<p>As global demand for soy and other commodities rises, pressures for bringing more land into production will also continue. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-00194-5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Numerous studies</a> have confirmed that the Soy Moratorium has played a key role in reducing forest conversion to soy in the Amazon, but a prominent criticism is that it could potentially drive forest conversion to soy in other ecosystems. Likewise, Paraguay’s Deforestation Moratorium only applies to the Atlantic Forest, and, although our analysis shows that soy production in the country is concentrated in this biome, the Chaco is still a vulnerable agricultural frontier. If only the Brazilian Amazon or Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest are off limits, there is additional pressure placed on forests and other natural ecosystems.</p>



<p>There are&nbsp;several&nbsp;mechanisms that can help&nbsp;achieve sustainable production goals. Governments can tackle direct risk of land conversion by implementing&nbsp;and enforcing&nbsp;laws. Both governments and companies&nbsp;need&nbsp;to&nbsp;send clear&nbsp;policy and&nbsp;market signals&nbsp;to&nbsp;help end the perversive cycle of land price speculation&nbsp;and land grabbing.&nbsp;In addition, corporations should adhere to due-diligence practices when procuring suppliers (both direct and indirect)&nbsp;and&nbsp;transparently demonstrate&nbsp;progress over time. Finally, efforts to boost&nbsp;productivity&nbsp;of&nbsp;soy and other commodities on existing agricultural land should be&nbsp;emphasized,&nbsp;while&nbsp;also&nbsp;linked with ecosystem protection measures and investments in new technologies.&nbsp;These strategies will help meet growing global food demand and ensure economic growth in South America while preserving its forests and natural resources.&nbsp;</p>



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The Commodity Report: Soy Production’s Impact on Forests in South America

<aside id="textbox"> <div><em>Tree cover loss does not always <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/data-methods" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equal deforestation</a>, as it is difficult to know whether the clearing will result in a permanent land use change. However, pairing the loss data with annual soy data allows us to confirm the land use change permanence and gets us closer to understanding true deforestation patterns. We refer to these changes as “forests replaced by soy”. There is also some disagreement about how well the tree cover loss data captures forests in some biomes. For example, in the Atlantic Forest biome in Brazil, the large presence of tree plantations in the same area as soy results in an overestimation of the area of forest replaced by soy. While in other regions without natural occurring trees, such as Pampas, results are underestimated. However, loss still indicates annual change trends and the level of threat experienced by these important ecosystems. GFW frequently reports on humid primary forest loss, however this analysis reports all tree cover loss to include the Chaco and Cerrado biomes as they are important habitats and soy growing regions in South America that are outside the humid tropics. Official Brazilian government deforestation data (PRODES) was not used as it did not allow for cross country comparisons. The statistics presented here represent tree cover that was eventually replaced by soy production areas regardless of whether it happened legally or illegally.</em></div> </aside>



<p>As global food demand increases so too does the potential destruction of natural ecosystems to accommodate growing commodity production. Understanding deforestation related to agriculture is essential to developing strategies that solve these challenges. Recent research from World Resources Institute shows that <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">8.2 million hectares</a> of forest were replaced by soy between 2001-2015 globally, of which 7.9 million hectares of conversion occurred in South America. Soy is also grown in large quantities in the United States, China and India, but in South America production is expanding into forests, threatening important ecosystems.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00729-z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New data</a> from Texas Tech University and University of Maryland, <a href="https://gfw.global/2ZObmQM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">available on GFW and GFW Pro</a>, enables anyone to see the extent of soy production within South America at a 30x30-meter resolution, per harvest year, from 2000 onward. To better understand the trends of soy production on the continent’s forests, we combined the new data with annual tree cover loss data and focused only on yearly soy expansion– new areas of soy planted per year from 2001 onward.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Annual tree cover loss within soy production areas" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-1-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<p>The dynamics of soy replacing forests in South America are complex because soy is often planted several years after tree cover is initially cleared. During the interim period land can be used for other purposes, typically pasture for grazing cattle. We classify the impacts of soy production as follows:</p>



<ul><li>Soy can have a direct impact on forests when land is cleared and immediately converted to soy production. We consider any forest loss that occurred three years before soy establishment as immediate conversion.</li><li>Soy can have a delayed impact when forests are cleared and used for other purposes for several years (three or more years for our analysis) prior to soy establishment. <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Our previous analysis</a> shows that between 2001-2015 in South America, soy directly converted 3.9 million hectares of forest and had a delayed impact on the remaining 4.0 million hectares.</li><li>Just like any other crop, soy could also be a driver of indirect land displacement. As the area of available land is finite, land use change in one area could be indirectly linked to land use changes elsewhere. Our analysis cannot quantify the impact of indirect land displacement.</li></ul>



<h2>Soy Expansion Threatens Ecosystems Beyond the Brazilian Amazon</h2>



<p>Historically, expansion of soy production in the Brazilian Amazon has faced intense public scrutiny, prompting action by both public and private sector actors. For example, <a href="https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Policy-Brief-Part-I-How-to-Navigate-the-Complexity.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brazil’s Forest Code</a> directs farmers in the Amazon to set aside 80% of their property as a forest reserve, and under the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/soy-moratorium-averted-new-jersey-size-loss-of-amazon-rainforest-study/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Soy Moratorium</a>, traders agreed not to purchase soy grown on land cleared after 2008. However, in 2019 just 14% of all expansion across South America occurred in the Amazon. Our analysis shows that soy expansion has also impacted other important ecosystems that have received less attention.</p>



<div class="flourish-embed" data-src="story/1046368?163031"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" width="100%">Each box outlined in black denotes the total soy expansion in each region in 2019. Gray is new soy expansion in areas that weren’t forested in 2000, yellow represents direct forest conversion (less than three years between conversion and soy expansion) and blue represents delayed use of cleared forest land for soy (up to 20 years between conversion and soy expansion.</div>



<h2>In Brazil Forest Area Replaced by Soy in the Cerrado is Comparable to the Amazon</h2>



<p>Situated south of the Amazon, the <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/nt0704" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cerrado is the most biodiverse savanna ecosystem in the world</a>. Land use planning and scientific advancements during the 1980s and 1990s transformed the Cerrado into an agricultural powerhouse for soy, cattle, and other commodities at the expense of millions of hectares of forests and native vegetation. Over the last 20 years the extent of soy production in this biome has more than doubled, and in 2019 a third of the entire South American soy planted area was located in the Cerrado.</p>



<p>Environmental protections in the Cerrado are <a href="https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Policy-Brief-Part-I-How-to-Navigate-the-Complexity.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">less strict than in the Amazon</a>, and both biomes have experienced comparable total forest area replaced by soy over the last 20 years. Furthermore, the amount of direct forest conversion to soy in the Cerrado is almost twice as high as the Amazon, where large quantities of soy are still being planted on land where forest was cleared more than 15 years ago.</p>



<p>Rates of direct annual conversion have trended downward over the last several years, but delayed conversion has been relatively stable. Even if not a direct attribution, such delayed effect is relevant as studies have <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab003a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">demonstrated</a> that expectations of future increase in land’s value, which occurs when an area is converted to agriculture, have impacts on decisions to deforest. Even if soy does not occupy the land right after it is deforested, the expectation that it could do so in the future can also be considered a driver of deforestation.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog_Graphic-3-2.png" width="100%">Each column represents the total area of soy expansion in each harvest year. Yellow represents the proportion of that yearly expansion taking place in areas recently deforested and blue in areas that were forested more than three years before soy expansion happened.</div>



<h2>Direct&nbsp;Conversion of&nbsp;Forests to&nbsp;Soy&nbsp;is&nbsp;Decreasing in Argentina, but&nbsp;Not&nbsp;Fast&nbsp;Enough</h2>



<p>Only a very small share of soy production in Argentina has come at the expense of forests as the crop is primarily grown in the Pampas grasslands. However, due to the considerable extent of land area occupied by soy across the country, Argentina is still second to Brazil in terms of total forest area replaced by soy. Soy primarily replaced forests in the northwestern portion of the country, where soy expansion threatens forests and other native vegetation in the <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146731/deforestation-in-argentinas-gran-chaco" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gran Chaco</a>. This highly biodiverse ecosystem is the largest dry forest in South America and a prominent frontier of agricultural expansion.</p>



<p>During the last ten years in Argentina the extent of forest area replaced by soy per year has more than halved, and during the same time period the area of direct conversion of forests to soy also plummeted, falling from 87,000 to 12,000 hectares in 2019. However, the declining rate of direct forest conversion has not kept pace with the declining area of overall soy expansion, which has fallen at a much faster rate.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Rate of Argentinian soy expansion is falling faster than rate of direct conversion of forests to soy" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-4-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<h2>Soy&nbsp;Production&nbsp;in Paraguay&nbsp;Remains Concentrated&nbsp;in the Atlantic Forest</h2>



<p>Paraguay is home to two key forested ecosystems: the Chaco in the west and the Atlantic Forest in the east. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and one of the most endangered as current forest cover is only a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/12/photo-essay-paraguays-last-remaining-remnant-of-intact-atlantic-forest/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fraction of what it once was</a>. This biome is where soy expansion has primarily replaced forests, and our analysis shows that direct conversion of forests to soy in this biome has trended downward over the last several years, falling from a peak of 22,000 hectares in 2013 to 5,000 hectares in 2019. However, the Atlantic Forest in Paraguay is protected by a Zero Deforestation Law, passed in 2004 in response to high rates of deforestation in the early 2000s. Direct conversion of forests to soy should not be taking place in this biome at all and are, by definition, illegal.</p>



<p>As available land in the east shrinks, concerns about agriculture creeping into the Chaco have grown. However, our analysis found that while the area of planted soy in western Paraguay has increased over the last 20 years, overall soy production in Paraguay remains concentrated in the east, accounting for approximately 98% of all soy planted across the country in 2019. Likewise, forest area replaced by soy is concentrated in eastern Paraguay, and in 2019, 86% of forest replaced by soy in Paraguay was located in this region of the country. Soy cannot yet be considered a significant direct driver of deforestation in the Paraguayan Chaco, and conversion of forests is mainly linked to other commodities.</p>



<h2>Soy&nbsp;Replacing&nbsp;Forest&nbsp;in&nbsp;Bolivia&nbsp;Creates a&nbsp;New&nbsp;Hotspot of&nbsp;Deforestation</h2>



<p>Although Bolivia produces&nbsp;far&nbsp;less soy than its neighbors, the expansion&nbsp;of soy production&nbsp;is largely occurring at the expense of forests. In 2019,&nbsp;soy&nbsp;replaced&nbsp;49,000 hectares of forest, accounting for 80% of the entire&nbsp;soy&nbsp;expansion&nbsp;area&nbsp;in the country. Direct pressure on forests is high as well, and during the same year,&nbsp;soy directly&nbsp;converted&nbsp;22,000 hectares of&nbsp;forest.&nbsp;This area is comparable to other regions where&nbsp;the overall extent of&nbsp;soy&nbsp;expansion is much higher.&nbsp;For&nbsp;comparison,&nbsp;in 2019, 29,000 hectares of forest in the Brazilian Amazon was&nbsp;directly&nbsp;converted for soy expansion and&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;Cerrado&nbsp;40,000 hectares of forest was converted.</p>



<p>In 2020 the country was among <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/top-ten-lists" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the top ten countries for humid tropical primary forest loss</a>. Soy is largely replacing forests in the Chiquitano Dry Forests, a <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/nt0212" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unique transitionary biome</a> situated between the Amazon and drier forests of the Chaco. If nothing changes, it’s likely that deforestation will continue to increase, placing all three biomes at risk.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Direct conversion in 2019 harvest year is comparable between Bolivia, the Amazon and the Cerrado" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GFW-Soy-blog-v4_Figure-5-1.png" width="100%"></div>



<h2>Sustainable&nbsp;Soy&nbsp;Production&nbsp;Will&nbsp;Require&nbsp;a&nbsp;Holistic&nbsp;Approach</h2>



<p>Focusing sustainability efforts on a single commodity does not fully address the challenges of deforestation in South America, and the indirect impact of soy on forests may be larger than what our analysis shows because of its links to other commodities. Soy often replaces pasture because cattle grazing is typically the activity that first occupies land once forests are cleared. Between 2000 and 2015, 45.1 million hectares of forest was replaced by pasture globally, over five times that of soy. Soy is also an important source of animal feed, primarily for poultry and pork, as well as also aquaculture. Further, the value of forests areas, pasture areas and cropland changes over time, meaning that the expectation of land value increases with crop expansion is a key driver of deforestation as well.</p>



<p>As global demand for soy and other commodities rises, pressures for bringing more land into production will also continue. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-00194-5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Numerous studies</a> have confirmed that the Soy Moratorium has played a key role in reducing forest conversion to soy in the Amazon, but a prominent criticism is that it could potentially drive forest conversion to soy in other ecosystems. Likewise, Paraguay’s Deforestation Moratorium only applies to the Atlantic Forest, and, although our analysis shows that soy production in the country is concentrated in this biome, the Chaco is still a vulnerable agricultural frontier. If only the Brazilian Amazon or Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest are off limits, there is additional pressure placed on forests and other natural ecosystems.</p>



<p>There are&nbsp;several&nbsp;mechanisms that can help&nbsp;achieve sustainable production goals. Governments can tackle direct risk of land conversion by implementing&nbsp;and enforcing&nbsp;laws. Both governments and companies&nbsp;need&nbsp;to&nbsp;send clear&nbsp;policy and&nbsp;market signals&nbsp;to&nbsp;help end the perversive cycle of land price speculation&nbsp;and land grabbing.&nbsp;In addition, corporations should adhere to due-diligence practices when procuring suppliers (both direct and indirect)&nbsp;and&nbsp;transparently demonstrate&nbsp;progress over time. Finally, efforts to boost&nbsp;productivity&nbsp;of&nbsp;soy and other commodities on existing agricultural land should be&nbsp;emphasized,&nbsp;while&nbsp;also&nbsp;linked with ecosystem protection measures and investments in new technologies.&nbsp;These strategies will help meet growing global food demand and ensure economic growth in South America while preserving its forests and natural resources.&nbsp;</p>



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The combination of new data on soy production with annual tree cover loss shows sustainable soy production will require a holistic approach

Soy Production’s Impact on Forests in South America | GFW Blog

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Amanda Dimartini

Stripped earth at an Arco Minero gold mine in Venezuela.

Users In Action

Hear stories from the forest defenders working in the field.

Users In Action | Global Forest Watch Blog

<p>Mining in the Amazon is a pervasive threat to the world’s largest rainforest— and it’s <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629090012.htm#:~:text=Gold%20mining%20has%20rapidly%20increased,as%2090%25%20of%20total%20deforestation.&text=They%20estimate%20that%20mining%2Drelated,forest%20carbon%20across%20the%20Amazon." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">on the rise</a>. Gold prices <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/covid-19-rising-gold-prices-and-illegal-mining-threaten-indigenous-lands-amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">spiked</a> last summer and have remained high. COVID-19-related stimulus packages supported gold prices, and the economic threat posed by the pandemic turned investors towards the seemingly stable investment in gold. Demand for the metal has accelerated. And where demand has grown, deforestation and human rights abuses have followed.</p>



<p>Venezuela’s rainforests and people have been hit particularly hard by gold mining, where estimates indicate that between <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/GIATOC-OC_Illegally-Mined-Gold-in-Latin-America-3c3f978eef80083bdd8780d7c5a21f1e.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">80% and 90%</a> is mined illegally.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gold mining replaces oil industry, with the potential to be just as destructive</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pearls-to-oil-venezuelas-long-history-of-boom-and-bust-24049" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">historically</a> dependent on extractive industries; until recently, the country’s economy was built on government-controlled petroleum extraction. After the oil industry collapsed due to crumbling infrastructure, the government was looking for a way to bolster the economy and <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/venezuela-fuels-amazonian-gold-rush-with-petrodollars-drying-up-1.1487421" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gold</a> offered a potential salve.</p>



<p>In 2016, the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced plans for the Arco Minero, which designates 112,000 square kilometers of rainforest south of the Orinoco River for mining gold and coltan (a mineral used in many electronics).</p>



<p>The plan for the Arco Minero <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/story" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">explicitly contradicts</a> environmental standards laid out in the country’s constitution. Many of the mines are run by Venezuelan gangs or guerilla groups from Colombia under protection from the Venezuelan military, creating a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">landscape of lawlessness</a>.</p>



<p>Illegal goldmining had been occurring south of the Orinoco since before the Arco Minero, but never on such a massive scale. Cesar Romero, a metallurgical engineer, director of Fundacion Cerlas and co-founder of “Plataforma contra el Arco Minero”— an activist organization that opposes the mining— recalls his shock at just how much territory had been approved for mining.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“When I read the decree, I couldn’t believe the dimension. The activity was bad before, but the Arco Minero made it huge,” said Romero. “The area established by the decree is more than 12% of the national territory, bigger than Cuba and some European countries.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>An arc of destruction eating into the rainforest</strong></h3>



<p>Since the declaration in 2016, mining has proliferated, transforming Bolivar and Amazonas state where most of the activity is concentrated.</p>



<p>Vilisa Morón-Zambrano, President of the Sociedad Venezolana de Ecologica (SVE) which has been investigating the ecological impacts of the Arco Minero since 2016, has traveled to the region several times and remarked how quickly things have changed.</p>



<p>“In 2014 I was there for tourism, and the mining was not evident. But last February, once you pass some of the main towns and find the road to Brazil, it’s shocking, it’s all over,” Morón-Zambrano said. “You’d see people with craft equipment for mining walking around, and you could also see extraction plant sites in plain sight.”</p>



<p>Global Forest Watch (GFW) data shows a spike in primary forest loss in Venezuela in 2016, and loss in subsequent years has yet to return to pre-2016 levels. <a href="https://gfw.global/3eukaA8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">74%</a> of loss since 2016 occurred in Amazonas and Bolívar state.</p>



<iframe loading="lazy" width="630" height="460" frameborder="0" src="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/embed/widget/treeLossPct/country/VEN?treeLossPct=eyJoaWdobGlnaHRlZCI6ZmFsc2V9"></iframe>



<p>The destruction can be seen from space. Satellite imagery of <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Las Claritas</a>, a mining town in Bolívar state, shows tan scars sprawling out into the otherwise dense forest. Since 2016, Bolivar has lost 74,600 hectares of primary forest. Amazonas has lost 76,850 hectares, which is almost 1.5 times the amount of loss from the prior 15 years combined.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Gold mining town in the Arco Minero." src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Las-Claritas-gold-mining-arco-minero.jpg" width="100%">Tree cover loss (pink) surrounding the mining town of Las Claritas, in Bolívar state, south of the Orinoco River.</div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Venezuela’s forests are vital to the world’s natural heritage</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela is considered one of the world’s “megadiverse” countries—17 countries that harbor the majority of the Earth’s species. Over <a href="https://gfw.global/33Bn0x2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">60%</a> of the country is covered in natural forests that house threatened species like the jaguar and the giant anteater. The southern half of the country spans the Amazon and Orinoco river watersheds, as well as the dramatic landscape of stone pillars — called <em>tepui</em>— and the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Tepui rock formation in Gran Sabana National Park, Venezuela" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2048px-Kukenan_Tepuy_at_Sunset.jpg" width="100%">Tepui rock formation in Gran Sabana National Park, Venezuela. Paolo Costa Baldi/Wikimedia</div>



<p><a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelas-ecocide-needs-international-attention" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">70</a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelas-ecocide-needs-international-attention" target="_blank">%</a> of Southern Venezuela is technically <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-designation-indicators/protected-forests" target="_blank">protected</a> by 8 national parks, 2 biosphere reserves and 19 national monuments. But these designations present only a small deterrent against the advance of mining. Mining has spread like wildfire from the designated area of the Arco Minero to encroach on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/illegal-mining-venezuela-death-and-devastation-amazonas-and-orinoco-regions" target="_blank">Canaima</a> and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.oas.org/dsd/AAPAD2/Docs/(iii)%20Yapacana%20NP%20Special%20Report%20(Venezuela).pdf" target="_blank">Yapacana</a> National Parks.</p>



<p>The gold mining process is highly destructive. It strips back <a href="https://theconversation.com/gold-mining-leaves-deforested-amazon-land-barren-for-years-find-scientists-141639" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trees and topsoil</a>, causing erosion. Mercury, a toxic chemical used to amalgamate gold particles, can get carried for miles by rivers and accumulates in the bodies of fish and other organisms. The Orinoco River drains to the Atlantic where the <a href="https://law.lclark.edu/live/blogs/125-orinocos-mining-arc-an-environmental-crime-with" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pollution</a> can impact fisheries in Caribbean nations.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Indigenous Venezuelans are disproportionately affected</strong></h3>



<p>The surge of unregulated mining activity has carried with it a flood of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26096&LangID=E" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">human rights abuses</a>. Mining towns are rife with drugs, prostitution, violence and illness. Deaths often result from unsafe working conditions in the mines.</p>



<p>Venezuela’s Indigenous population has been disproportionately affected. The largest concentration of Indigenous peoples in Venezuela live south of the Orinoco and they have been given little to no say in the development of their region. Vladimir Aguilar, professor of political science at the University of Los Andes works with Indigenous towns and communities to help them define the borders of their territory and defend their land rights. He estimates that roughly half of Indigenous communities in Venezuela have felt either direct or indirect impacts from the mines.</p>



<p>Communities like the Pemon, Yanomamis and Ye’kuanas have either had to leave their ancestral lands as they are invaded by miners and armed groups, or <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work in the mines</a> for survival, facing the threat of violence from armed groups and escalating costs of living. This major disruption to their traditional ways of life has strangled Indigenous culture and Aguilar worries that, once gone, it will be irreplaceable.</p>



<p>“The horrible part is that once you lose a culture, you lose part of humanity. In Venezuela, it was always the summation of cultures, including Indigenous cultures, so we are losing a part of our national identity. Once you lose that, it’s gone forever,” Aguilar said.</p>



<p>The impacts are also spreading beyond Venezuela’s borders. Mining towns often have increased rates of <a href="https://www.icj.org/venezuela-indigenous-peoples-face-deteriorating-human-rights-situation-due-to-mining-violence-and-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">malaria and other diseases</a>. According to Romero, as people have fled the conditions in Venezuela, those diseases follow, creating a regional public health issue.</p>



<p>“Now there are cases of malaria, diphtheria, AIDS…” Romero said. “6 million people are estimated to have left Venezuela, mostly to bordering countries, walking through roads and mountains and later affecting all those neighboring countries with these diseases.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Halting the damage will require national and international system change</strong></h3>



<p>In order to see real change in the region, Morón-Zambrano says that the government regime needs to change. But the international community can take some actions to mitigate the impact. A gold market that sources gold responsibly, recycling electronics, tighter controls on the sale of mercury and responsible purchases on the part of the consumer, she said, could all help reduce the pressure on Venezuela’s people and forests. Wider awareness of the scope of the issue could also help drive action.</p>



<p>But Morón-Zambrano also sees hope in the people working to change the situation from the inside.</p>



<p>“What impacted me most was that there were people that wanted to do things differently, despite all the huge challenges. People who are organizing to plan and revert the damage happening today, people with big ideas,” Morón-Zambrano said.</p>



<p>Aguilar said that, despite the grim situation, the people south of the Orinoco are resilient. </p>



<p>“They have hope, that’s part of their culture,” Aguilar said. “There was a German philosopher that said, ‘destiny is not what happened, but where we’re going’. We’re going with strength and hope.”</p>



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<p></p>

Venezuelan People and Forests Suffer as Gold Mining Advances

<p>Mining in the Amazon is a pervasive threat to the world’s largest rainforest— and it’s <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629090012.htm#:~:text=Gold%20mining%20has%20rapidly%20increased,as%2090%25%20of%20total%20deforestation.&amp;text=They%20estimate%20that%20mining%2Drelated,forest%20carbon%20across%20the%20Amazon." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">on the rise</a>. Gold prices <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/covid-19-rising-gold-prices-and-illegal-mining-threaten-indigenous-lands-amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">spiked</a> last summer and have remained high. COVID-19-related stimulus packages supported gold prices, and the economic threat posed by the pandemic turned investors towards the seemingly stable investment in gold. Demand for the metal has accelerated. And where demand has grown, deforestation and human rights abuses have followed.</p>



<p>Venezuela’s rainforests and people have been hit particularly hard by gold mining, where estimates indicate that between <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/GIATOC-OC_Illegally-Mined-Gold-in-Latin-America-3c3f978eef80083bdd8780d7c5a21f1e.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">80% and 90%</a> is mined illegally.</p>



<h3><strong>Gold mining replaces oil industry, with the potential to be just as destructive</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pearls-to-oil-venezuelas-long-history-of-boom-and-bust-24049" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">historically</a> dependent on extractive industries; until recently, the country’s economy was built on government-controlled petroleum extraction. After the oil industry collapsed due to crumbling infrastructure, the government was looking for a way to bolster the economy and <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/venezuela-fuels-amazonian-gold-rush-with-petrodollars-drying-up-1.1487421" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gold</a> offered a potential salve.</p>



<p>In 2016, the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced plans for the Arco Minero, which designates 112,000 square kilometers of rainforest south of the Orinoco River for mining gold and coltan (a mineral used in many electronics).</p>



<p>The plan for the Arco Minero <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/story" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">explicitly contradicts</a> environmental standards laid out in the country’s constitution. Many of the mines are run by Venezuelan gangs or guerilla groups from Colombia under protection from the Venezuelan military, creating a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">landscape of lawlessness</a>.</p>



<p>Illegal goldmining had been occurring south of the Orinoco since before the Arco Minero, but never on such a massive scale. Cesar Romero, a metallurgical engineer, director of Fundacion Cerlas and co-founder of "Plataforma contra el Arco Minero"— an activist organization that opposes the mining— recalls his shock at just how much territory had been approved for mining.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“When I read the decree, I couldn’t believe the dimension. The activity was bad before, but the Arco Minero made it huge,” said Romero. “The area established by the decree is more than 12% of the national territory, bigger than Cuba and some European countries.”</p>



<h3><strong>An arc of destruction eating into the rainforest</strong></h3>



<p>Since the declaration in 2016, mining has proliferated, transforming Bolivar and Amazonas state where most of the activity is concentrated.</p>



<p>Vilisa Morón-Zambrano, President of the Sociedad Venezolana de Ecologica (SVE) which has been investigating the ecological impacts of the Arco Minero since 2016, has traveled to the region several times and remarked how quickly things have changed.</p>



<p>“In 2014 I was there for tourism, and the mining was not evident. But last February, once you pass some of the main towns and find the road to Brazil, it’s shocking, it’s all over,” Morón-Zambrano said. “You’d see people with craft equipment for mining walking around, and you could also see extraction plant sites in plain sight.”</p>



<p>Global Forest Watch (GFW) data shows a spike in primary forest loss in Venezuela in 2016, and loss in subsequent years has yet to return to pre-2016 levels. <a href="https://gfw.global/3eukaA8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">74%</a> of loss since 2016 occurred in Amazonas and Bolívar state.</p>



<iframe width="630" height="460" frameborder="0" src="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/embed/widget/treeLossPct/country/VEN?treeLossPct=eyJoaWdobGlnaHRlZCI6ZmFsc2V9"></iframe>



<p>The destruction can be seen from space. Satellite imagery of <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Las Claritas</a>, a mining town in Bolívar state, shows tan scars sprawling out into the otherwise dense forest. Since 2016, Bolivar has lost 74,600 hectares of primary forest. Amazonas has lost 76,850 hectares, which is almost 1.5 times the amount of loss from the prior 15 years combined.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Gold mining town in the Arco Minero." src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Las-Claritas-gold-mining-arco-minero.jpg" width="100%">Tree cover loss (pink) surrounding the mining town of Las Claritas, in Bolívar state, south of the Orinoco River.</div>



<h3><strong>Venezuela’s forests are vital to the world’s natural heritage</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela is considered one of the world’s “megadiverse” countries—17 countries that harbor the majority of the Earth’s species. Over <a href="https://gfw.global/33Bn0x2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">60%</a> of the country is covered in natural forests that house threatened species like the jaguar and the giant anteater. The southern half of the country spans the Amazon and Orinoco river watersheds, as well as the dramatic landscape of stone pillars — called <em>tepui</em>— and the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Tepui rock formation in Gran Sabana National Park, Venezuela" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2048px-Kukenan_Tepuy_at_Sunset.jpg" width="100%">Tepui rock formation in Gran Sabana National Park, Venezuela. Paolo Costa Baldi/Wikimedia</div>



<p><a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelas-ecocide-needs-international-attention" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">70</a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelas-ecocide-needs-international-attention" target="_blank">%</a> of Southern Venezuela is technically <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-designation-indicators/protected-forests" target="_blank">protected</a> by 8 national parks, 2 biosphere reserves and 19 national monuments. But these designations present only a small deterrent against the advance of mining. Mining has spread like wildfire from the designated area of the Arco Minero to encroach on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/illegal-mining-venezuela-death-and-devastation-amazonas-and-orinoco-regions" target="_blank">Canaima</a> and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.oas.org/dsd/AAPAD2/Docs/(iii)%20Yapacana%20NP%20Special%20Report%20(Venezuela).pdf" target="_blank">Yapacana</a> National Parks.</p>



<p>The gold mining process is highly destructive. It strips back <a href="https://theconversation.com/gold-mining-leaves-deforested-amazon-land-barren-for-years-find-scientists-141639" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trees and topsoil</a>, causing erosion. Mercury, a toxic chemical used to amalgamate gold particles, can get carried for miles by rivers and accumulates in the bodies of fish and other organisms. The Orinoco River drains to the Atlantic where the <a href="https://law.lclark.edu/live/blogs/125-orinocos-mining-arc-an-environmental-crime-with" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pollution</a> can impact fisheries in Caribbean nations.</p>



<h3><strong>Indigenous Venezuelans are disproportionately affected</strong></h3>



<p>The surge of unregulated mining activity has carried with it a flood of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26096&amp;LangID=E" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">human rights abuses</a>. Mining towns are rife with drugs, prostitution, violence and illness. Deaths often result from unsafe working conditions in the mines.</p>



<p>Venezuela’s Indigenous population has been disproportionately affected. The largest concentration of Indigenous peoples in Venezuela live south of the Orinoco and they have been given little to no say in the development of their region. Vladimir Aguilar, professor of political science at the University of Los Andes works with Indigenous towns and communities to help them define the borders of their territory and defend their land rights. He estimates that roughly half of Indigenous communities in Venezuela have felt either direct or indirect impacts from the mines.</p>



<p>Communities like the Pemon, Yanomamis and Ye’kuanas have either had to leave their ancestral lands as they are invaded by miners and armed groups, or <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work in the mines</a> for survival, facing the threat of violence from armed groups and escalating costs of living. This major disruption to their traditional ways of life has strangled Indigenous culture and Aguilar worries that, once gone, it will be irreplaceable.</p>



<p>“The horrible part is that once you lose a culture, you lose part of humanity. In Venezuela, it was always the summation of cultures, including Indigenous cultures, so we are losing a part of our national identity. Once you lose that, it’s gone forever,” Aguilar said.</p>



<p>The impacts are also spreading beyond Venezuela’s borders. Mining towns often have increased rates of <a href="https://www.icj.org/venezuela-indigenous-peoples-face-deteriorating-human-rights-situation-due-to-mining-violence-and-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">malaria and other diseases</a>. According to Romero, as people have fled the conditions in Venezuela, those diseases follow, creating a regional public health issue.</p>



<p>“Now there are cases of malaria, diphtheria, AIDS...” Romero said. “6 million people are estimated to have left Venezuela, mostly to bordering countries, walking through roads and mountains and later affecting all those neighboring countries with these diseases.”</p>



<h3><strong>Halting the damage will require national and international system change</strong></h3>



<p>In order to see real change in the region, Morón-Zambrano says that the government regime needs to change. But the international community can take some actions to mitigate the impact. A gold market that sources gold responsibly, recycling electronics, tighter controls on the sale of mercury and responsible purchases on the part of the consumer, she said, could all help reduce the pressure on Venezuela’s people and forests. Wider awareness of the scope of the issue could also help drive action.</p>



<p>But Morón-Zambrano also sees hope in the people working to change the situation from the inside.</p>



<p>“What impacted me most was that there were people that wanted to do things differently, despite all the huge challenges. People who are organizing to plan and revert the damage happening today, people with big ideas,” Morón-Zambrano said.</p>



<p>Aguilar said that, despite the grim situation, the people south of the Orinoco are resilient. </p>



<p>“They have hope, that’s part of their culture,” Aguilar said. “There was a German philosopher that said, ‘destiny is not what happened, but where we’re going’. We’re going with strength and hope.”</p>





<p></p>

Sarah Ruiz

Marco Belo

<p>La minería en el Amazonas es una amenaza generalizada para la selva tropical más grande del mundo <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629090012.htm#:~:text=Gold%20mining%20has%20rapidly%20increased,as%2090%25%20of%20total%20deforestation.&amp;text=They%20estimate%20that%20mining%2Drelated,forest%20carbon%20across%20the%20Amazon." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">— y va en aumento</a>. Los precios del oro <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/covid-19-rising-gold-prices-and-illegal-mining-threaten-indigenous-lands-amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">se dispararon</a> el verano pasado y se han mantenido altos. Los paquetes de estímulo relacionados con COVID-19 respaldaron los precios del oro, y la amenaza económica planteada por la pandemia hizo que los inversores se inclinaran en poner su dinero en el aparentemente estable oro. La demanda del metal se ha acelerado. Y donde ha crecido la demanda, ha seguido la deforestación y las violaciones de los derechos humanos.</p>



<p>Las selvas tropicales y la población de Venezuela se han visto particularmente afectadas por la extracción de oro, donde las estimaciones indican que entre el <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/GIATOC-OC_Illegally-Mined-Gold-in-Latin-America-3c3f978eef80083bdd8780d7c5a21f1e.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">80% y el 90%</a> se extrae ilegalmente.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>La minería de oro reemplaza a la industria petrolera, con el potencial de ser igual de destructiva</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela ha dependido <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pearls-to-oil-venezuelas-long-history-of-boom-and-bust-24049" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">históricamente</a> de las industrias extractivas; hasta hace poco, la economía del país se basaba en la extracción de petróleo controlada por el gobierno. Después de que la industria petrolera colapsara debido al desmoronamiento de la infraestructura, el gobierno buscaba una forma de impulsar la economía y <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/venezuela-fuels-amazonian-gold-rush-with-petrodollars-drying-up-1.1487421" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">el oro</a> ofrecía un potencial bálsamo.</p>



<p>En 2016, el presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, anunció planes para el Arco Minero que designa 112.000 kilómetros cuadrados de selva tropical al sur del río Orinoco para la extracción de oro y coltán (un mineral utilizado en muchos productos electrónicos).</p>



<p>El plan del Arco Minero <a href="https://arcominero.infoamazonia.org/story" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">contradice explícitamente</a> los estándares ambientales establecidos en la constitución del país. Muchas de las minas están dirigidas por bandas venezolanas o grupos guerrilleros de Colombia bajo la protección del ejército venezolano, lo que crea un <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">panorama de anarquía</a>.</p>



<p>La extracción ilegal de oro había estado ocurriendo al sur del Orinoco desde antes del Arco Minero, pero nunca en una escala tan masiva. César Romero, ingeniero metalúrgico, director de la Fundación Cerlas y cofundador de "Plataforma contra el Arco Minero", una organización activista que se opone a la minería, recuerda su conmoción por la cantidad de territorio aprobado para la minería.</p>



<p>“Cuando leí el decreto, no podía creer la dimensión. La actividad minera era mala antes, pero el Arco Minero lo hizo enorme”, dijo Romero. “El área establecida por el decreto es más del 12% del territorio nacional, más grande que Cuba y algunos países europeos”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Un arco de destrucción devorando la selva tropical</strong></h3>



<p>Desde la declaración del año 2016, la minería ha proliferado, transformando los estados de Bolívar y Amazonas donde se concentra la mayor parte de la actividad.</p>



<p>Vilisa Morón-Zambrano, presidenta de la Sociedad Venezolana de Ecológica (SVE) que investiga los impactos ecológicos del Arco Minero desde 2016, ha viajado a la región varias veces y remarcó lo rápido que han cambiado las cosas.</p>



<p>“En 2014 estuve allí por turismo y la minería no era evidente. Pero en febrero pasado, una vez que pasas por algunas de las principales ciudades y encuentras la carretera a Brasil, es impactante, se ve por todos lados”, dijo Morón-Zambrano. "Ves gente con equipo artesanal para la minería caminando, y también puedes ver sitios de plantas de extracción a plena vista".</p>



<p>Los datos de Global Forest Watch (GFW) muestran un aumento en la pérdida de bosques primarios en Venezuela en 2016, y la pérdida en los años siguientes aún no ha vuelto a los niveles anteriores a 2016. El <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/VEN/?category=summary&amp;location=WyJjb3VudHJ5IiwiVkVOIl0%3D&amp;map=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&amp;scrollTo=treeLossLocated&amp;showMap=true&amp;treeLossLocated=eyJmb3Jlc3RUeXBlIjoicHJpbWFyeV9mb3Jlc3QiLCJleHRlbnRZZWFyIjoyMDAwLCJzdGFydFllYXIiOjIwMTZ9&amp;treeLossPct=eyJoaWdobGlnaHRlZCI6ZmFsc2V9&amp;widget=treeLossLocated" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">74%</a> de la pérdida desde 2016 ocurrió en el estado de Amazonas y Bolívar.</p>



<iframe width="630" height="460" frameborder="0" src="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/embed/widget/treeLossPct/country/VEN?treeLossPct=eyJoaWdobGlnaHRlZCI6ZmFsc2V9"></iframe>



<p>La destrucción se puede ver desde el espacio. Las imágenes satelitales de <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Las Claritas</a>, un pueblo minero en el estado de Bolívar, muestran cicatrices de color canela que se extienden hacia el bosque, que de otra manera es denso. Desde 2016, Bolívar ha perdido 74,600 hectáreas de bosque primario. Amazonas ha perdido 76,850 hectáreas, que es casi 1,5.</p>



<div class="imagecenter"><img class=" wp-image-3569 alignright" style="padding-bottom: 10px;" alt="Gold mining town in the Arco Minero." src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Las-Claritas-gold-mining-arco-minero.jpg" width="100%">Pérdida de cobertura arbórea (rosa) en los alrededores del poblado minero Las Claritas, en el estado Bolívar, al sur del río Orinoco.</div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Los bosques de Venezuela son vitales para el patrimonio natural mundial</strong></h3>



<p>Venezuela es considerada uno de los países "megadiversos" del mundo - 17 países que albergan la mayoría de las especies de la Tierra. <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/VEN/?category=summary&amp;mainMap=eyJzaG93UmVjZW50SW1hZ2VyeSI6dHJ1ZSwic2hvd0FuYWx5c2lzIjp0cnVlfQ%3D%3D&amp;map=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%3D%3D&amp;mapMenu=eyJkYXRhc2V0Q2F0ZWdvcnkiOiJsYW5kQ292ZXIifQ%3D%3D&amp;showMap=true&amp;treeLoss=eyJpbnRlcmFjdGlvbiI6e319&amp;treeLossPct=eyJpbnRlcmFjdGlvbiI6e319&amp;treeLossTsc=eyJpbnRlcmFjdGlvbiI6e319&amp;widget=treeCover" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Más del 60%</a> del país está cubierto en bosques naturales que albergan especies amenazadas como el jaguar y el oso hormiguero gigante. La mitad sur del país se extiende por las cuencas de los ríos Amazonas y Orinoco, así como por el espectacular paisaje de pilares de piedra, llamados tepui, y la cascada más alta del mundo, el Salto Ángel.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelas-ecocide-needs-international-attention" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">El 70%</a> del sur de Venezuela está técnicamente <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-designation-indicators/protected-forests" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">protegido</a> por 8 parques nacionales, 2 reservas de biosfera y 19 monumentos nacionales. Pero estas designaciones presentan solo una pequeña disuasión contra el avance de la minería. La minería se ha extendido como la pólvora desde el área designada del Arco Minero invadiendo los Parques Nacionales <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/illegal-mining-venezuela-death-and-devastation-amazonas-and-orinoco-regions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Canaima</a> y <a href="https://www.oas.org/dsd/AAPAD2/Docs/(iii)%20Yapacana%20NP%20Special%20Report%20(Venezuela).pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yapacana</a>.</p>



<p>El proceso de extracción de oro es muy destructivo. Despoja de <a href="https://theconversation.com/gold-mining-leaves-deforested-amazon-land-barren-for-years-find-scientists-141639" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">árboles y de la capa superficial del suelo</a>, provocando erosión. El mercurio, una sustancia química tóxica que se utiliza para amalgamar partículas de oro, puede ser transportado por kilómetros por los ríos y acumularse en los cuerpos de los peces y otros organismos. El río Orinoco desemboca en el Atlántico, donde la <a href="https://law.lclark.edu/live/blogs/125-orinocos-mining-arc-an-environmental-crime-with" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">contaminación</a> puede afectar la pesca en las naciones del Caribe.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Los indígenas venezolanos se ven afectados de manera desproporcionada</strong></h3>



<p>El aumento de la actividad minera no regulada ha traído consigo una avalancha de <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26096&amp;LangID=E" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">abusos contra los derechos humanos</a>. Las ciudades mineras están plagadas de drogas, prostitución, violencia y enfermedades. Las muertes a menudo son el resultado de condiciones laborales inseguras en las minas.</p>



<p>La población indígena de Venezuela se ha visto afectada de manera desproporcionada. La mayor concentración de pueblos indígenas en Venezuela vive al sur del Orinoco y se les ha dado poca o ninguna voz en el desarrollo de su región. Vladimir Aguilar, profesor de ciencias políticas de la Universidad de Los Andes, trabaja con pueblos y comunidades indígenas para ayudarlos a definir las fronteras de su territorio y defender sus derechos territoriales. Él estima que aproximadamente la mitad de las comunidades indígenas en Venezuela han sentido impactos directos o indirectos de las minas.</p>



<p>Comunidades como los pemón, yanomami y ye'kuanas han tenido que abandonar sus tierras ancestrales al ser invadidas por mineros y grupos armados, o <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/venezuelas-mining-arc-boom-sweeps-up-indigenous-people-and-cultures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trabajar en las minas</a> para sobrevivir, enfrentando la amenaza de la violencia de los grupos armados y el aumento del costo de vida. Esta gran alteración de sus formas de vida tradicionales ha estrangulado la cultura indígena y Aguilar teme que, una vez desaparecida, sea irremplazable.</p>



<p>“Lo horrible es que una vez que se pierde una cultura, se pierde parte de la humanidad. En Venezuela, siempre fue la suma de culturas, incluidas las culturas indígenas, por lo que estamos perdiendo una parte de nuestra identidad nacional. Una vez que pierdes eso, desaparece para siempre”, dijo Aguilar.</p>



<p>Los impactos también se están extendiendo más allá de las fronteras de Venezuela. Las ciudades mineras a menudo tienen mayores tasas de <a href="https://www.icj.org/venezuela-indigenous-peoples-face-deteriorating-human-rights-situation-due-to-mining-violence-and-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">malaria y otras enfermedades</a>. Según Romero, a medida que la gente ha huido de las condiciones en Venezuela, esas enfermedades siguen, creando un problema de salud pública regional. “Ahora hay casos de malaria, difteria, sida…” dijo Romero. “Se estima que 6 millones de personas han salido de Venezuela, en su mayoría a países limítrofes, caminando por carreteras y montañas y luego afectando a todos aquellos países vecinos con estas enfermedades”.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Detener el daño requerirá un cambio en el sistema nacional e internacional</strong></h3>



<p>Para ver un cambio real en la región, Morón-Zambrano dice que el régimen de gobierno debe cambiar. Pero la comunidad internacional puede tomar algunas acciones para mitigar el impacto. Un mercado de oro que se abastece de oro de manera responsable, reciclando productos electrónicos, controles más estrictos sobre la venta de mercurio y compras responsables por parte del consumidor, dijo, podrían ayudar a reducir la presión sobre la gente y los bosques de Venezuela. Una mayor conciencia del alcance del problema también podría ayudar a impulsar la acción.</p>



<p>Pero Morón-Zambrano también ve esperanza en las personas que trabajan para cambiar la situación desde adentro.</p>



<p>“Lo que más me impactó fue que había personas que querían hacer las cosas de manera diferente, a pesar de todos los enormes desafíos. Gente que se está organizando para planificar y revertir el daño que está pasando hoy, gente con grandes ideas”, dijo Morón-Zambrano.</p>



<p>Aguilar dijo que, a pesar de la terrible situación, la gente al sur del Orinoco es resistente. “Tienen esperanza, eso es parte de su cultura”, dijo Aguilar. “Hubo un filósofo alemán que dijo, 'el destino no es lo que pasó, sino hacia dónde vamos'. Vamos con fuerza y ​​esperanza".</p>

El Pueblo y Los Bosques Venezolanos Sufren a Medida que Avanza la Minería de Oro

The Arco Minero — a massive gold mining operation — has threatened Venezuela's forests and the Indigenous communities that live there.

Arco Minero Destroys Venezuelan Forests | Global Forest Watch Blog