What is causing deforestation?

Agriculture is the main cause of deforestation. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that farm expansion drives almost 90% of global deforestation, with new cropland and cattle grazing the two biggest culprits.¹ Logging, mining, roads and fire add to the damage, and often clear the way for the farms that follow.

Is agriculture the main cause of deforestation?

Yes. FAO's global satellite survey found that conversion to cropland causes more than half of forest loss, and livestock grazing almost 40%.¹ A 2022 review in Science came to the same conclusion for the tropics: agriculture drove 90 to 99% of deforestation there in 2011–2015.² Well over half of that is linked to just three products: pasture, soy and palm oil.³

Yet the same review found that only 45 to 65% of the deforested land became productive farmland within a few years.² WRI points to studies showing pasture expanding even when ranching makes little or no profit: landholders may clear forest to speculate on land or to secure their claim to it.⁴

Commercial agriculture: the commodities

The World Resources Institute (WRI) overlaid maps of farms and plantations on maps of past forest loss. Seven commodities account for 57% of all tree cover loss associated with agriculture between 2001 and 2015, and cattle alone for 36%.⁴

The figures show where these crops now stand on land deforested since 2001. That does not prove each farm did the clearing itself.⁴ Research suggests, for example, that soy expanding onto old pasture pushes cattle farther into the forest.⁴ More on palm oil and deforestation.

Subsistence and shifting agriculture

Not all farm clearing feeds global markets. In shifting cultivation, people clear a patch of forest, farm it for a few years, then leave it to regrow. Since 2001 it has been associated with 53 million hectares of tree cover loss,⁵ and 17% of the primary forest lost in the humid tropics.⁶ In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, small-scale shifting cultivation caused 86% of primary forest loss between 2002 and 2025. Wood for firewood and charcoal, the country's main source of energy, is another major driver.⁷ WRI links such loss in parts of the Congo Basin to poverty, few alternatives, population growth and unstable governance.⁷

Logging, mining and roads

Logging. Logging is associated with 135 million hectares of tree cover loss since 2001, often with regrowth or replanting afterwards.⁵ It also opens the door to permanent clearing. In Borneo, one study found that at least two-thirds of the forest later converted to industrial plantations had first been selectively logged for timber.⁴

Mining. Industrial mining directly destroyed 3,264 square kilometers of tropical forest between 2000 and 2019, 80% of it in Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana and Suriname. In two-thirds of the countries studied, mining also caused forest loss beyond the mine itself.⁸ Gold mining caused 33% of primary forest loss in Peru's Madre de Dios region from 2002 to 2025, and nickel mining is fueling loss in Sulawesi, Indonesia.⁷

Roads and infrastructure. A study of the Amazon found that nearly 95% of deforestation occurred within 5.5 kilometers of a road or 1 kilometer of a river.⁹ In Colombia, presumably illegal roads are pushing into the Amazon, including into protected areas and Indigenous territories, often linked to armed groups, illicit crops, land grabbing and cattle.⁷

How does fire cause deforestation?

Wildfire is associated with 163 million hectares of tree cover loss since 2001.⁵ Some northern forest fires are natural, but in humid tropical forests fires are almost always set by people,⁵ usually to clear land for farming, and drought lets them spread.⁶

In 2025, fires caused 42% of global tree cover loss.⁷ In Bolivia, fires likely set by people drove much of the year's primary forest loss.⁷ In Indonesia, the catastrophic 2015 haze came from fires started by farmers, particularly those producing palm oil and timber for pulp and paper.¹⁰ Climate change is making this worse: extreme heat and drought fuel bigger, more damaging fires.⁷ Its toll on health is on our effects of deforestation page.

How do the causes differ by region?

FAO puts South America's deforestation rate highest, at 4.22 million hectares a year in 2015–2025, followed by Africa at 3.45 million.¹¹

Latin America: cattle and soy

In South America, livestock grazing causes almost three-quarters of deforestation.¹ In Brazil, permanent agriculture caused 73% of primary forest loss from 2002 to 2025, largely for soy and cattle. In Bolivia, cattle ranching and crops such as soy, maize and sorghum drive most of the loss not linked to fire. In Peru, crops such as cocoa and oil palm, plus mining, drive most of the loss.⁷ Read more about the Amazon.

Southeast Asia: palm oil, mining and export crops

More than half of new oil palm plantations in Indonesia (53%) and Malaysia (57%) replaced forest between 2001 and 2015.⁴ Other pressures in 2025 included nickel mining in Sulawesi and a government food estate program in South Papua in Indonesia, and rubber, cassava and bananas for export to China, Thailand and Vietnam in Laos.⁷ Malaysia has lost nearly a fifth of its primary rainforest since 2001.⁷ See our page on Indonesia.

Africa: small farms, charcoal and cocoa

In Africa and Asia, over 75% of the forest area lost was converted to cropland.¹ In parts of the Congo Basin, loss is linked more to local needs for food and fuelwood than to large-scale commodity production, and conflict in eastern DR Congo has pushed displaced communities to clear new land.⁷ Export crops are a smaller but growing threat: DR Congo's cocoa area grew more than five-fold from 2015 to 2024. Cameroon had its highest primary forest loss on record in 2025, and its recent increases are partly due to cocoa.⁷ In Ghana, land later used for cocoa accounted for one-third of all tree cover loss between 2001 and 2015.⁴ More on the Congo Basin.

How does global demand drive deforestation?

Much of the forest cleared in the tropics feeds markets far away. One study estimated that expanding farms and tree plantations into tropical forest caused about 2.6 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions a year in 2010–2014. Cattle and oilseed products accounted for over half, and international trade drove 29 to 39% of those emissions, depending on the model.¹² In EU countries, deforestation makes up about 15% of the carbon footprint of the food people eat.¹²

That is why rules now target supply chains. The EU Deforestation Regulation covers cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber and some products made from them, such as leather, chocolate, tyres and furniture. It applies from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and from 30 June 2027 for micro and small ones.¹³ Voluntary deals are fragile: in early 2026, major soy traders announced plans to withdraw from the Amazon soy moratorium, a voluntary pact not to buy soy from deforested areas of the Amazon.⁷ Read how the rules work on our EUDR page, and what actually helps on solutions to deforestation.

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