Impact of European Union Consumption on Deforestation

Overview

The increasing relevance of international trade, as well as the growing competition for resources between developed and emerging economies, influence access to and distribution of natural resources. The European Union is a major importer of food and non-food commodities from third countries, including those with significant deforestation rates.

As a result, the EU’s consumption patterns may influence global environments by contributing to the increasing trade in commodities from the land-intensive agricultural and forestry sectors. The project analyzes the impacts of EU consumption of both primary and processed, or manufactured goods, on deforestation and proposes policies on how to reduce those impacts.

IIASA Research

IIASA’s LANDFLOW model, a powerful tool for estimating how many hectares of land are directly or indirectly associated with different consumption patterns, has been extended to analyze the impact of EU consumption of imported food and non-food commodities on global deforestation. The estimates of deforestation in each country included in the model are attributed to human activities, including:

• Agricultural expansion into previously forested areas (separate for crop and livestock sector)
• Industrial round-wood extraction prior to agricultural expansion
• Expansion of urban areas and infrastructure

In addition natural hazards as causes of deforestation (such as wild fires) have been estimated, and when none of these factors can explain deforestation, it is assigned in the data as ”unexplained”.

LANDFLOW tracks “total land” and “deforested land” embodied in agricultural and forestry products from primary production in the country of origin to final utilization based on the large harmonized time series databases of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. The model accounts for intermediate and joint products along the agricultural and forestry processing chain and records cross-country flows of primary and secondary commodities.

Last edited: 24 July 2012