COVID-19 impacts on Amazon deforestation

authored by

Jerico Fiestas-Flores, Minoru Higa, Javier G. Montoya-Zumaeta

Abstract

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.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Environmental Planning

External Organisation(s)

Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes)
University of Bern

Type

Article

Journal

Trees, Forests and People

Volume

20

No. of pages

8

Publication date

06.2025

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Forestry, Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous), Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2025.100888 (Access: Open)