Deforestation footprint of all agricultural commodities produced in the Amazon

Research Project, 2024 – 2025

This project aims to investigate the deforestation footprint of all agricultural commodities produced in the Amazon. The focus is on enhancing the granularity of DeDuCE’s deforestation attribution analysis to the municipality level (wherever possible) across all Amazonian countries, encompassing eight countries and one union territory.

The project will also focus on linking these deforestation footprints to both regional and international trade, as well as the role of financial actors involved in the trade of these commodities.

The project will also aim to:

• Ensure consistency and enhance granularity for assessing commodity-driven deforestation in the Amazon by leveraging various datasets, as well as examining the implications of different factors in the attribution methodology to ensure robustness and clarify uncertainties.

• Determine the magnitude of deforestation that is linked to the direct expansion of commodities, and (speculate/discuss) the indirect impacts of agricultural expansion on Amazon’s deforestation.

• Develop this project collaboratively, utilizing state-of-the-art, widely adopted datasets for Amazonian countries and ensuring methodological acceptability in deforestation attribution.

• Inform with robust analysis and evidence WWF efforts to advocate towards policy actions to reduce deforestation in the Amazon attributed to commodities.