Foreign demand for agricultural commodities drives virtual carbon exports from Cambodia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15552153 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emma Li Johansson (0000-0002-6053-1300, Lund University, corresponding author), Emma Johansson (0000-0001-5300-9672), Stefan Olin (0000-0002-8621-3300, Lund University), Jonathan Seaquist (Lund University) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 064034-064034 |
| Publication date | 2020-03-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ab8157 |
| OpenAlex | W3011503324 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 42 |
Rapid deforestation is a major sustainability challenge, partly as the loss of carbon sinks exacerbates global climate change. In Cambodia, more than 13% of the total land area has been contracted out to foreign and domestic agribusinesses in the form of economic land concessions, causing rapid large-scale land use change and deforestation. Additionally, the distant drivers of local and global environmental change often remain invisible. Here, we identify hotspots of carbon loss between 1987–2017 using the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS and by comparing past and present land use and land cover. We also link global consumption and production patterns to their environmental effects in Cambodia by mapping the countries to which land-use embedded carbon are exported. We find that natural forests have decreased from 54%–21% between 1987 and 2017, mainly for the expansion of farmland and orchards, translating into 300 million tons of carbon lost, with loss rates over twice as high within economic land concessions. China is the largest importer of embedded carbon, mainly for rubber and sugarcane from Chinese agribusinesses. Cambodian investors have also negatively affected carbon pools through export-oriented products like rubber. The combined understanding of environmental change and trade flows makes it possible to identify distant drivers of deforestation, which is important for crafting more environmentally and socially responsible policies on national and transnational scales
Agricultural economics · Agriculture · Agroforestry · Business · Deforestation (computer science · Economics · Environmental protection · Geography · Land cover · Land use · Land use, land-use change and forestry · Natural resource economics · Sustainability · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Energy, Environment, Economic Growth · Environmental Science · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Ecology
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The conversion of rubber to oil palm and other landcover types in Southeast Asia
The carbon cost of agricultural production in the global land rush
Global agricultural trade and land system sustainability
Does land tenure change accelerate deforestation? A matching-based four-country comparison
Pathways from research to sustainable development
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Environmental and social footprints of international trade
Soil carbon stocks and land use change
Historical (1850–2000) gridded anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of reactive gases and aerosols
Accelerated deforestation driven by large-scale land acquisitions in Cambodia
High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change
Global Consequences of Land Use
Trading forests
Does ecologically unequal exchange occur
Anatomy of a boom
Tele-connecting local consumption to global land use
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The transboundary displacement of deforestation under Redd
Forest plantations and climate change discourses
Climate change mitigation, land grabbing and conflict
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Shadow Economies and the State
Social and Economic Impacts of Land Concessions on Rural Communities of Cambodia
Land grabs, land control, and Southeast Asian crop booms
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |