Drivers of Deforestation

Deforestation occurs because it is in the financial interest of actors in Rainforest Nations. Deforestation allows rural populations to practice subsistence agriculture, landless people to acquire a patch of their own, the private sector to produce commodities and sell them on national and international markets, and local and national governments to generate tax income and foreign exchange. As a result, the forests are currently worth more dead than alive.

It should be remembered that today's richest countries actively pursued deforestation and land conversion to agriculture in early phases of development for exactly these reasons.

Traditional subsistence activities
Traditionally, the lion's share of deforestation has been associated with poverty and local subsistence activities. Population growth, increasing land scarcity, and declining productivity pushed people to look for new lands to practice subsistence agriculture.

This included farming activities that permanently deforested, and those linked to ‘swidden' agricultural systems that rotated over secondary forest fallows (and did not cause new deforestation). In addition, trees were cut for building or fuel. In some regions, these sorts of subsistence activities are still major drivers of deforestation.

Changing nature of deforestation
The consumption needs of developed economies and rapidly expanding developing economies are now increasingly driving deforestation. In Indonesia and Brazil, the two countries accounting for nearly two-thirds of tropical rainforest loss between 2000 and 2005, a growing proportion of forest loss can be attributed to export-led commercial agricultural expansion - palm oil, cattle and soybean production are the key commodities. In other areas, cocoa, coffee and rubber production play a role, while mining and growing demand for biofuels can have an indirect impact on forest loss.

The global wood products industry is also a significant driver, both directly through destructive logging of hardwood timber and clear-felling for paper pulp, and indirectly by opening up the forest to other uses.

Complex forces
It should be noted that deforestation often occurs because of the complex interplay between these drivers. For instance, land can be opened up by roads for logging, slashed and burned by migrating subsistence farmers, cultivated for a few years, sold over to cattle ranchers and then bought by soy farmers. It is not always easy to attribute deforestation to a particular driver. Moreover, many drivers of deforestation are indirect. For example, the expansion of cattle ranching in rainforest areas can be driven by the expansion of commercial agriculture in non-rainforest areas.

The drivers of deforestation also generate very different economic returns. Commercial agriculture, such as palm oil or soy cultivation, is far more lucrative than subsistence farming. Any effort to slow deforestation must take these differences into account.

Growing pressure on forests
A growing global population, rising incomes and changing diets will continue to increase demand for food, animal feed and fuel, which will lead to more pressure on forests. The world's population is likely to increase from six to nine billion over the next 40 years. The Gallagher Review estimates that growing demand for food and feed is likely to require an additional 200-500 million hectares of agricultural land by 2020.