Cattle ranching, soy farming and land speculation each play a distinct in but interrelated role in driving deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Cattle emerges as the most immediate and extensive driver, and soy functions as an increasingly powerful, yet indirect force. Land grabbing is a structural driver of deforestation because of legal loopholes and weak enforcement that have made deforestation a low-risk, high-reward strategy to land.
Report
Developing new approaches to track and understand commodity supply chains across Latin America and the US. We combine data science, remote sensing, GIS, field surveys, and econometric statistics to map the supply chains across the ground and link them to the companies and countries that purchase the commodities. Our work has helped to inform decision making and identify key risks and opportunities within specific supply chains.
Integrating causal econometric analysis with the best field and property-level data to bring new understanding to company and producer responses to public and private sector policies. We also consider responses at the corporate and processing plant level to track changes in monitoring and procurement decisions and whether any of these potential changes influenced forest on the ground.