COVID-19 impacts on Amazon deforestation

We leverage spatial variation in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic across Peru to examine its impacts on deforestation. We find that COVID-19 explains one-third of the increase in deforestation in 2020. We estimate that a 10 % increase in COVID-19 cases increases deforestation by 1.5 %. This imp...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jerico Fiestas-Flores, Minoru Higa, Javier G. Montoya-Zumaeta
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-06-01
Series:Trees, Forests and People
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666719325001141
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Summary:We leverage spatial variation in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic across Peru to examine its impacts on deforestation. We find that COVID-19 explains one-third of the increase in deforestation in 2020. We estimate that a 10 % increase in COVID-19 cases increases deforestation by 1.5 %. This impact is exacerbated in districts with coca production or illegal mining. Pandemic-driven deforestation increased CO2 emissions by over 8 million tons, representing a social cost five times the national budget for forest management. These findings underscore the vulnerability of environmental monitoring and enforcement to external shocks in developing countries.
ISSN:2666-7193