Half of Tropical Deforestation is Illegal: Agricultural Land Clearing to Blame for Disappearing Rainforest

It turns out that nearly half of all recent tropical deforestation is the result of illegal clearing for commercial agriculture. The findings reveal that when it comes to the rainforest, stricter policies need to be enacted in order to protect this natural heritage for future generations.

It's estimated that the international trade in agricultural commodities, such as beef, leather, soy, palm oil and wood products, produced on land illegally converted from tropical forests is worth about $61 billion per year. Needless to say, the money involved in this trade provides incentive to continue illegally clearing forests, despite the harm it's doing to the environment.

"We've known that the production of agricultural commodities is a principal driving force behind deforestation, but this is the first report to show the outsize role that illegal activities play in the production of hundreds of food and household products consumed worldwide," said Michael Jenkins, President and CEO of Forest Trends, the NGO that published the recent report, in a news release. "Increased agricultural production will be necessary for food security and to meet the demand of the emerging global middle class. However, the world must also wake up to the scale of how much of this agricultural production is taking place on land that has been illegally cleared."

What's worrisome is that this illegal clearing is estimated to produce about 1.47 gigatons of carbon each year. That's equivalent to about 25 percent of the EU's annual fossil fuel-based emissions. Needless to say, this can have major impacts on climate as the world attempts to curtail carbon-based emissions.

The new research reveals that illegal deforestation is rampant in most countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa. For example, in Papua New Guinea, a recent inquiry found that 90 percent of licenses issued for deforestation were given by corrupt or fraudulent means. In Bolivia soy, 75 percent of which is exported, is the main engine behind illegal deforestation in the country's section of the Amazon.

"Five football fields of tropical forest are being destroyed every minute to supply these export commodities," said Sam Lawson, the author of the new report. "There is hardly a product on supermarket shelves that is not potentially tainted."

The findings reveal the importance of taking action when it comes to illegal clearing of rainforest for agriculture. If current trends continue, it's likely that the extent of the rainforest will continue to decline which may lead to further widespread problems.

The findings can be found online in the new report.