Finance

Business

Organic chemistry

Biology

Clearance

Boom

Urology

Natural rubber

Economics

Geography

Natural resource economics

Chemistry

Ecology

Programming language

Hevea brasiliensis

Deforestation (computer science)

Commodity

Computer science

Forestry

Environmental science

Tropics

Agroforestry

Medicine

Environmental engineering

Nature Plants

Tropical forests continue to undergo a rapid transformation. The expansion of rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations has been reported as a major driver of forest loss, linked to a boom in market demand. Distant commodity markets have spurred a surge of large-scale economic land concessions granted throughout tropical Southeast Asia. Using satellite imagery, we show the impact of rubber tree plantations on Cambodian forest cover and analyse how annual forest-to-rubber conversion rates relate to global rubber prices from 2001 to 2015. We found that 23.5 ± 1.8% of national forest cover was cleared in this period, with 23.2 ± 3.6% of cleared forest converted to rubber plantations. Annual forest-to-rubber conversion rates closely correlated with global rubber prices, with a time lag of 8–9 months (Pearson’s r = 0.93). Our results reveal a strong link between global commodity markets and tropical forest loss, particularly in countries with land policies geared towards rapid development. Rubber tree plantations have been displacing tropical forests in Southeast Asia, linked to global rubber prices. Forest-to-plantation conversion in Cambodia is correlated with shifts in rubber prices, with a time lag of under a year, showing the link between global commodity markets and deforestation in developing nations.

Unravelling the link between global rubber price and tropical deforestation in Cambodia