Agriculture drives more than 90% of tropical deforestation

Halting deforestation will require a step-change in approach, and to be effective measures must address underlying and indirect roles of agriculture, says a recently published study in Science. This research finds that between 90 and 99 percent of all deforestation in the tropics is driven directly or indirectly by agriculture. Yet only half to two-thirds of this results in the expansion of active agricultural production on the deforested land. The study is a collaboration between many of the world's leading deforestation experts and provides a new synthesis of the complex connections between deforestation and agriculture, and what this means for current efforts to drive down forest loss. Following a review of the best available data, the new study shows that the amount of tropical deforestation driven by agriculture is higher than 80%, the most commonly cited number for the past decade. This comes at a crucial time following the Glasgow Declaration on Forests at COP26 and ahead of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) later this year and can help ensure that urgent efforts to tackle deforestation are guided and evaluated by an evidence base fit for purpose. "What surprised us was that a comparatively smaller share of the deforestation - between 45 and 65 percent - results in the expansion of actual agricultural production on the deforested land.