The role of domestic and international markets in the loss of nature across Brazil

Humans have converted a vast area of nature – forests, savannahs, wetlands, and grasslands – for agriculture. Though domestic markets account for more than 70% of global agricultural production and land use change, domestic supply chains and end-uses are rarely mapped. Here, we present an inter-regional input–output model for Brazil, a major agricultural producer and market with an active agricultural frontier, experiencing 70 Mha hectares of vegetation conversion since 2000. We capture the drivers of conversion in each of Brazil’s six biomes from 2010-2015, linking them to 36 economic activities and 47 Brazilian regions and four external trading partners: the European Union, the United States, China, and the Rest of the World. We find that 37.2% of conversion was driven by local (within-state) consumption, 34.8% driven by demand from other Brazilian states, and the remaining 28% for international trade. Overall, the area of non-forest conversion exceeded that of forests – notably for the domestic market and exports to China. Our approach reveals how conversion percolates throughout the economy, with many sectors indirectly sourcing conversion-associated products and by-products. Notably, we link 10.2% of conversion to dairy consumption and 7.7% of conversion to service sectors: Horeca (hotels, restaurants, and cafés), commerce and other services. While current environmental governance efforts largely focus on zero-deforestation pledges and first-mile traceability (e.g. from farms to slaughterhouses) our results provide a basis for accountability efforts to look upstream, engaging the retail, dairy, leather, and processed food sectors which use products linked to the loss of nature across each of Brazil’s biomes.