Table 2.
Comparison of rubber-related deforestation estimates generated by this and other studies
| Method | Definition of ‘forest’ | Time period | Reference area | Rubber-related deforestation in 1,000 ha yr−1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in reference area | Indonesia | Thailand | Malaysia | Cambodia | |||||
| Ref. 4 | Land balance model | Tree cover greater than or equal to 25% (ref. 51) | 2005–2017 | 135 tropical countries, including all chief rubber producers (except China and Laos) | 53 | 22 | 9 | 5 | 0.1 |
| Ref. 3 | 2005–2018 | 52 | 23 | 6 | 5 | 3 | |||
| Ref. 1 | Mix of spatially explicit data | Tree cover greater than or equal to 30% (ref. 51) | 2001–2015 | Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia and Malaysia | 140 | 64 | NA | 48 | 22 |
| Ref. 2 | Remote sensing | Internal classifier | 2003–2014 | Mainland Southeast Asia | 135 | NA | NA | NA | 69 |
| 437* | 232* | ||||||||
| Ref. 29 | Remote sensing | Tree cover greater than or equal to 10% (ref. 52) | 2001–2015 | Cambodia | NA | NA | NA | 34 | |
| This study | Remote sensing | ESA WorldCover 10 m 2020 v.100 (tree cover greater than or equal to 10%) | 2001–2016 (baseline 1993) | Southeast Asia | 186 | 66 | 39 | 20 | 15 |
| 156* ± 22 | NA | NA | NA | NA | |||||
The dataset in bold (first row) has been used to guide deforestation policy7 and to calculate the imported deforestation of individual countries6,8. In this study, we use a conservative baseline of 1993. The earliest baseline in other studies is 2000 and hence other studies will include more plantation rotation. The different base lines also mean that our estimates cannot easily be set into the context of overall deforestation in Southeast Asia (estimated to be 3.22 million ha yr−1 between 2001 and 201918). At face value our rubber deforestation estimates account for 5–6% of that figure but this is very conservative as the overall figure is derived using a baseline of 2000 and hence includes more plantation rotation (of rubber and other types of tree cover). Sample-based area estimates for this study (following ref. 33) and for ref. 2 are indicated by an asterisk.