What has driven deforestation in the 21st century?

Over the last two decades, the world has cut down forests at a rate of roughly one Costa Rica per year.

在过去的二十年里，世界以每年大约一个哥斯达黎加的速度砍伐森林。

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The largest driver of deforestation has been the expansion of agriculture.

森林砍伐的最大驱动因素是农业的扩张。

This has been true for millennia, and it remains the case today.

几千年来都是如此，今天仍然如此。

A recent study , published in Nature Food by Chandrakant Singh and Martin Persson, answered this question.

钱德拉坎特·辛格（Chandrakant Singh）和马丁·佩尔森（Martin Persson）最近在《自然食品》杂志上发表的一项研究回答了这个问题。

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In the chart below, you can see how much deforestation has been caused by different agricultural commodities.

在下图中，您可以看到不同农产品造成了多少森林砍伐。

This is shown as the annual average between 2001 and 2023.

显示为 2001 年至 2023 年间的年平均值。

Beef was, by far, the largest driver, accounting for 41% of the total.

到目前为止，牛肉是最大的推动因素，占总量的 41%。

Cattle need a lot of land for grazing, which means that the growing global demand for beef has led to the expansion of pasture.

牛需要大量土地来放牧，这意味着全球对牛肉需求的不断增长导致了牧场的扩大。

Beef alone has led to the destruction of more than two UK-sized areas of forest this century.

本世纪，仅牛肉一项就导致了超过两个英国面积的森林遭到破坏。

The second-largest driver was oilseeds.

第二大推动因素是油籽。

This category is dominated by deforestation for soy and palm oil; a lot of forest was lost to these plantations, especially in the first decade (as we’ll see later, these rates have fallen over the past ten years).

这一类别主要是为了获取大豆和棕榈油而砍伐森林；这些种植园失去了大量森林，特别是在第一个十年（正如我们稍后将看到的，这些比率在过去十年中有所下降）。

The other large drivers — accounting for 12% each — were forest plantations and cereal production.

其他主要驱动因素——各占 12%——是森林种植园和谷物生产。

Understanding what has driven deforestation is important, but so is understanding where the forests were lost.

了解森林砍伐的原因很重要，但了解森林消失的位置也很重要。

Let’s then take the chart above, but break each bar into the respective regions where it happened.

然后让我们看上面的图表，但将每个条形图分解为它发生的相应区域。

Looking at the chart below, we see that these losses are extremely geographically concentrated for many products.

从下图可以看出，许多产品的损失在地理上极其集中。

More than half of deforestation for beef production occurred in Brazil.

一半以上的牛肉生产毁林发生在巴西。

In fact, one-quarter of all deforestation this century was driven by Brazilian beef production alone.

事实上，本世纪四分之一的森林砍伐都是由巴西牛肉生产造成的。

Most other cattle pasture expansion happened in Brazil’s neighbors in Latin America.

大多数其他牛牧场扩张发生在巴西的拉丁美洲邻国。

So, clearance for beef is not only the world’s largest driver of deforestation; it has also been centered on some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet: the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savanna.

因此，牛肉的砍伐不仅是世界上森林砍伐的最大推动因素，而且也是造成森林砍伐的主要原因。它还以地球上一些生物多样性最丰富的生态系统为中心：亚马逊雨林和塞拉多稀树草原。

Most deforestation for oilseeds — the second-largest driver — has been for palm oil and soy.

大多数油籽森林砍伐（第二大驱动因素）是为了棕榈油和大豆。

Almost all of the world’s demand for palm oil has been met by just two countries — Indonesia and Malaysia — and this shows in the deforestation data.

世界上几乎所有棕榈油需求仅由两个国家（印度尼西亚和马来西亚）满足，这一点从森林砍伐数据中可以看出。

6% of global deforestation has been caused by Indonesian palm oil production.

全球 6% 的森林砍伐是由印度尼西亚棕榈油生产造成的。

Forest plantations have been a large driver in parts of Asia and North America, particularly in the United States and China.

人工林一直是亚洲和北美部分地区的主要推动力，特别是在美国和中国。

Finally, you can see that across most other products, it’s Africa — shown in green — where the most forest has been lost.

最后，您可以看到，在大多数其他产品中，非洲（以绿色显示）森林消失最多。

This is true for staple crops, such as cereals and roots and tubers, as well as for cash crops, such as fruits, nuts, coffee, and cocoa beans.

对于谷物、块根和块茎等主要作物以及水果、坚果、咖啡和可可豆等经济作物来说也是如此。

You can also see this clearly when looking at the continent’s annual data .

从非洲大陆的年度数据中也可以清楚地看到这一点。

As I’ve written previously , countries across sub-Saharan Africa achieve very low crop yields compared to the rest of the world.

正如我之前所写，与世界其他地区相比，撒哈拉以南非洲国家的农作物产量非常低。

As a consequence, most of the growth in food production has come from using more land, rather than using land more productively.

因此，粮食生产的大部分增长来自于使用更多的土地，而不是更有效地利用土地。

This has come at the cost of forests.

这是以牺牲森林为代价的。

Improvements in agricultural productivity are not just essential for food security and poverty reduction, but also for preserving natural habitats.

提高农业生产力不仅对于粮食安全和减贫至关重要，而且对于保护自然栖息地也至关重要。

The scale of deforestation, even today, is hard for me to wrap my head around.

即使在今天，森林砍伐的规模仍让我难以理解。

But a closer look at the data also reveals that the world can do something about it, and for some products, has already done so.

但仔细观察这些数据还可以发现，世界可以为此采取一些措施，并且对于某些产品来说，已经这样做了。

Palm oil is a clear example: while large amounts of forest were being cut down for oil palm plantations in the 2000s and early 2010s, rates have fallen substantially over the last decade.

棕榈油就是一个明显的例子：虽然在 2000 年代和 2010 年代初期，大量森林被砍伐用于油棕榈种植园，但在过去十年中，砍伐率大幅下降。

There are several reasons for this.

这有几个原因。

One has been the growth in corporate commitments from food companies: many of the largest, including Unilever and Nestlé, adopted “ No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation ” policies, committing not to buy palm oil from producers who have cut down forests for new plantations.

其中之一是食品公司的企业承诺不断增加：包括联合利华和雀巢在内的许多最大的公司都采取了“不砍伐森林、不泥炭、不开发”的政策，承诺不从那些砍伐森林用于新种植园的生产商那里购买棕榈油。

Certification schemes, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil , expanded, giving companies the option to buy deforestation-free palm oil.

可持续棕榈油圆桌会议等认证计划得到扩大，使公司可以选择购买无森林砍伐的棕榈油。

Both of these changes were partly driven by successful campaigns from non-governmental organizations and public pressure.

这两个变化在一定程度上是由非政府组织的成功运动和公众压力推动的。

The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia also took action to limit deforestation at home.

印度尼西亚和马来西亚政府也采取行动限制国内森林砍伐。

In 2018, Indonesia launched a moratorium on the issuance of new oil palm plantation permits.

2018年，印度尼西亚暂停发放新的油棕种植许可证。

Malaysia put a cap on the area that could be allocated to plantations, meaning any gains in palm oil production had to come from productivity improvements.

马来西亚对可分配给种植园的面积设定了上限，这意味着棕榈油产量的任何增长都必须来自生产力的提高。

This combination of government action and corporate commitments, underpinned by public pressure, has contributed to a reduction in deforestation for palm oil.

在公众压力的支持下，政府行动和企业承诺相结合，有助于减少为棕榈油而砍伐森林的情况。

The world could achieve the same for other products, but this relies on our understanding of which products — and where — are driving deforestation in the first place.

世界可以在其他产品上实现同样的目标，但这首先取决于我们对哪些产品以及在哪里导致森林砍伐的理解。

That’s why this data is so crucial.

这就是为什么这些数据如此重要。

Many thanks to Max Roser and Edouard Mathieu for their comments and suggestions on this article.

非常感谢 Max Roser 和 Edouard Mathieu 对本文的评论和建议。

How much, and what types of food, do countries produce across the world?

世界各国生产多少食品、生产什么类型的食品？

Rich countries import foods produced on deforested land in the tropics.

富裕国家进口热带森林砍伐土地上生产的食品。

How much deforestation do they import?

他们进口了多少森林砍伐？

Since 2000, the world has lost, on average, approximately 5.6 million hectares of forest per year to agriculture and plantations.

自 2000 年以来，世界平均每年因农业和种植园而损失约 560 万公顷森林。

Singh, C., & Persson, U.

辛格 (Singh)，C. 和佩尔森 (Persson)，U.

M.

M。

(2026).

（2026）。

Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions.

商品驱动的森林砍伐和相关碳排放的全球模式。

Nature Food.

自然食品。

Singh, C., & Persson, U.

辛格 (Singh)，C. 和佩尔森 (Persson)，U.

M.

M。

(2026).

（2026）。

Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions.

商品驱动的森林砍伐和相关碳排放的全球模式。

Nature Food.

自然食品。

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.

我们的文章和数据可视化依赖于许多不同的人和组织的工作。

When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources.

引用本文时，请同时注明底层数据来源。

This article can be cited as:

这篇文章可以引用为：

We are a live site and we keep our work maintained.

我们是一个活跃的网站，我们会保持我们的工作。

So our articles are often changed, including the data.

所以我们的文章经常改，包括数据。

You can browse previous versions of this work here.

您可以在此处浏览此作品的先前版本。