Abstract
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation driven by agricultural commodity production remains one of the important sustainability challenges of our times. The responses to tropical deforestation so far have not managed to reverse global trends of forest loss, reigniting the discussion about more robust and systemic measures. The concept of deforestation risk is highly relevant for current debates about policy and trade, and likely to increase in importance in the context of the proposed EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products and EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement. We argue that deforestation is a systemic risk that permeates through different economic sectors, including production, manufacturing, service and control sectors. International trade, investment and economic policies thus act as a systemic trap that cause the production sector to continue with nature’s destruction. This article seeks to more clearly define deforestation risk and uses the case of bovine leather from Brazil to illustrate how pressures for deforestation accumulate across economic sectors towards production, while deforestation risk is dispersed in an opposite trajectory. The article draws on multiple datasets and an extensive literature review. Included are quantitative data sources on annual slaughter, bovine hide/leather registry and annual deforestation, slaughterhouse and tannery locations. We argue that the EU banning unsustainable products from entry and putting incentives for more sustainable agricultural production in the tropics addresses deforestation risks that are currently visible and relatively easy to identify. These response mechanisms are conditioned upon traceability of deforestation risk across supply chains, which is prone to falsifications, leakage and laundry. Although proven to be essential, the proposed EU responses still miss out deeper leverage points to address the systemic drivers of deforestation coming from the manufacturing, service and control sectors that make production through deforestation profitable in the first place.
Highlights
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation are important sustainability challenges of our times
We argue for considering a perspective of that considered deforestation risk as embedded in all part of the supply chain
The European Union (EU)’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action plan (2003), EU Timber Regulation, the Roadmap to step up EU action to combat deforestation and forest degradation, and the proposed EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products are all necessary policy tools to address commodity-driven deforestation
Summary
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation are important sustainability challenges of our times. Indirect drivers of deforestation such as trade and consumption have overlapping (or back-to-back) and interplaying factors that make it difficult to assign specific and unique responsibilities, in terms of deforestation and forest degradation, to single units of commodities These uncertainties are captured through the term deforestation risk and traced across commodity supply chains. Expanding the supply chain perspective to include actors and processes in other economic sectors than production and trade, may help us understand why current approaches to address deforestation and forest degradation have far failed to make a global impact. Leather production and trade are more complex compared to beef and involve many national and international players, including intermediary sellers, tanneries and fashion houses among others This creates traceability gaps and complicates identifying deforestation risk along the supply chain, especially for downstream market actors. The outcome of this analysis informs the second part of our results, where we situate the deforestation risk of the leather within the different economic sectors
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
