Global, high-resolution satellite imagery from Google is now the default satellite imagery option on the GFW map. Other satellite imagery options, including Planet, Landsat and Sentinel-2, are also available and you can view them by going to the dropdown menu under &#8220;Google Satellite Imagery&#8221; in the map legend. <a href="https://gfw.global/4i17fDF">Explore Google imagery on the map</a>.

Google Satellite Imagery is Now Default on GFW

Users In Action

Hear stories from the forest defenders working in the field.

Users In Action | Global Forest Watch Blog

Cocoa

Cocoa | Global Forest Watch Blog

commodities

commodities | Global Forest Watch Blog

Sofia Tenorio Fenton

Caroline Winchester

Sofia Scharrer

Ariana Carter

ECOM Research Team

Cocoa production has been linked to high rates of deforestation and biodiversity loss, making it a significant contributor to environmental degradation. Addressing and mitigating these negative impacts is essential for achieving a more sustainable cocoa supply chain.



ECOM, one of the world’s largest cocoa traders and processors that sources from over 30 countries, has made it a priority to reduce the negative impacts from their operations. One way they are doing so is by applying a standardized methodology developed by World Resources Institute (WRI) to ensure the cocoa beans they use are sustainably sourced and are not linked to forest loss.



Recognizing that collective action is critical to ending deforestation and no one company can tackle the problem alone, ECOM joined the <a href="https://worldcocoafoundation.org/programmes-and-initiatives/cocoa-and-forests-initiative" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa & Forests Initiative</a> (CFI), facilitated by the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), and established in 2017 with the aim of ending cocoa-driven deforestation and restoring forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting.



To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-tools/data-resources-ending-deforestation-cocoa-west-africa/">two data-driven resources</a> available on GFW — the <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">West Africa Cocoa dataset</a> and the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (DRA)</a> — that ECOM has adapted and scaled to additional regions to secure a more sustainable cocoa supply chain.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1430" height="868" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="" class="wp-image-16731" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png 1430w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-1024x622.png 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-768x466.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Proactively identifying deforestation risk in cocoa supply chains</h2>



Prior to the Cocoa DRA, ECOM relied on broader, less tailored tools such as national level risk assessments or global data sets like the ones available on GFW. With the release of the Cocoa DRA, ECOM was able to adapt <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its methodology</a> to carry out widespread risk assessment in a standardized manner, expanding the model to other geographies and analyzing data from Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Vietnam and Uganda.



The flexibility of the Cocoa DRA has enabled ECOM to leverage global data and peer-reviewed methods while supplementing these with their own farm boundary data and ground verification (which is an essential component of cocoa monitoring since satellites can have trouble detecting cocoa grown under shade canopies).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="602" height="205" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Picture1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-18569"/></figure>



Once high-risk areas have been identified, ECOM works with smallholder farmers to proactively tackle cocoa-linked deforestation, focusing on prevention through strategies like sensitization training or Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs. The focus on high-risk locations enables further engagement with farmers and remediation to avoid excluding them from the supply chain, which can lead to worse outcomes and accelerate deforestation.



For example, since 2021, ECOM has partnered with a customer and local farming communities in Ghana to promote agroforestry through a PES initiative. The program provides farmers with multi-purpose shade trees, and farmers receive financial incentives for maintaining these trees over three years, boosting adoption rates. To ensure the program’s success and its meaningful contributions to local biodiversity and ecosystem health, ECOM conducted comprehensive land assessments prior to implementation. These assessments identified suitable tree species and accounted for farmers’ needs. The initiative includes training in Good Agricultural Practices, environmental stewardship and business management. A progress report due later in 2025 will highlight its impact on biodiversity and ecosystem health.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="2048" height="1363" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-2048x1363.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18570" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Beyond regulatory compliance</h2>



As the cocoa sector is focused on preparing for compliance with regulations like the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), it is crucial to recognize the continued importance of solutions and approaches that go beyond near-term compliance needs to effectively address sector-wide, systemic challenges.



While regulatory compliance assessments are focused on whether deforestation risk occurred after a given cut-off date, they often do not help identify future deforestation risk or inform collective action. The Cocoa DRA is intended to support better allocation of resources for halting deforestation and to enable collaborative approaches among cocoa supply chain actors where they’re most urgently needed to address deforestation.



For example, in Côte d’Ivoire, ECOM is using information gained from the Cocoa DRA to inform multiple efforts aiming to protect forests and support sustainability. In one project, they’re collaborating with the <a href="https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/32209.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Green Innovation Centre of GIZ</a>, the German Corporation for International Cooperation, to provide training and awareness-raising to help farmers adapt to climate change, build resilience and increase incomes through climate-smart cocoa and agroforestry. Around the protected areas of the Bossematié Nature Reserve and the Beki Classified Forest, ECOM is working to tackle deforestation and improve conservation by helping farmers in the forest buffer zone transition to agroforestry. They collaborated with GIZ to develop a management plan for the Reserve’s buffer zone and are now developing an incentive scheme based on carbon stocks and additional planting of trees for promoting agroforestry practices.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="2048" height="1365" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-2048x1365.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18571" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-768x512.jpg 768w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



Additionally, two briquette production units are being installed within two of ECOM’s partner cooperatives to promote the use of sustainable briquettes made from organic waste. This initiative aims to reduce reliance on firewood to help prevent deforestation.



Finally, ECOM is also supporting local nurseries to develop plants for on- and off-farm planting and distributing trees to further accelerate the transition to agroforestry. This will all be supported by a local plan to monitor and prevent deforestation. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="2048" height="1356" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-2048x1356.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18572" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-2048x1356.jpg 2048w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-768x509.jpg 768w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-1536x1017.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



Using the Cocoa DRA and complementary data and tools, ECOM will continue ongoing monitoring efforts aimed at identifying and preventing future deforestation. This is a great step in the right direction, but ultimately, companies like ECOM need more solutions that can encourage collaborative approaches and continued innovation that prioritizes the needs of cocoa farmers and their communities. Only then can we truly achieve deforestation-free supply chains.



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Better Cocoa for the Planet: How ECOM is Reducing Deforestation in Their Supply Chain

Cocoa production has been linked to high rates of deforestation and biodiversity loss, making it a significant contributor to environmental degradation. Addressing and mitigating these negative impacts is essential for achieving a more sustainable cocoa supply chain.



ECOM, one of the world’s largest cocoa traders and processors that sources from over 30 countries, has made it a priority to reduce the negative impacts from their operations. One way they are doing so is by applying a standardized methodology developed by World Resources Institute (WRI) to ensure the cocoa beans they use are sustainably sourced and are not linked to forest loss.



Recognizing that collective action is critical to ending deforestation and no one company can tackle the problem alone, ECOM joined the <a href="https://worldcocoafoundation.org/programmes-and-initiatives/cocoa-and-forests-initiative" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa &amp; Forests Initiative</a> (CFI), facilitated by the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), and established in 2017 with the aim of ending cocoa-driven deforestation and restoring forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting.



To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-tools/data-resources-ending-deforestation-cocoa-west-africa/">two data-driven resources</a> available on GFW — the <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">West Africa Cocoa dataset</a> and the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (DRA)</a> — that ECOM has adapted and scaled to additional regions to secure a more sustainable cocoa supply chain.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="" class="wp-image-16731"/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Proactively identifying deforestation risk in cocoa supply chains</h2>



Prior to the Cocoa DRA, ECOM relied on broader, less tailored tools such as national level risk assessments or global data sets like the ones available on GFW. With the release of the Cocoa DRA, ECOM was able to adapt <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/mapping-cocoa-assessing-deforestation-risk-cocoa-cote-divoire-ghana" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its methodology</a> to carry out widespread risk assessment in a standardized manner, expanding the model to other geographies and analyzing data from Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Vietnam and Uganda.



The flexibility of the Cocoa DRA has enabled ECOM to leverage global data and peer-reviewed methods while supplementing these with their own farm boundary data and ground verification (which is an essential component of cocoa monitoring since satellites can have trouble detecting cocoa grown under shade canopies).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Picture1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-18569"/></figure>



Once high-risk areas have been identified, ECOM works with smallholder farmers to proactively tackle cocoa-linked deforestation, focusing on prevention through strategies like sensitization training or Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs. The focus on high-risk locations enables further engagement with farmers and remediation to avoid excluding them from the supply chain, which can lead to worse outcomes and accelerate deforestation.



For example, since 2021, ECOM has partnered with a customer and local farming communities in Ghana to promote agroforestry through a PES initiative. The program provides farmers with multi-purpose shade trees, and farmers receive financial incentives for maintaining these trees over three years, boosting adoption rates. To ensure the program's success and its meaningful contributions to local biodiversity and ecosystem health, ECOM conducted comprehensive land assessments prior to implementation. These assessments identified suitable tree species and accounted for farmers’ needs. The initiative includes training in Good Agricultural Practices, environmental stewardship and business management. A progress report due later in 2025 will highlight its impact on biodiversity and ecosystem health.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ghana-SourceTrust-1-2048x1363.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18570"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Beyond regulatory compliance</h2>



As the cocoa sector is focused on preparing for compliance with regulations like the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), it is crucial to recognize the continued importance of solutions and approaches that go beyond near-term compliance needs to effectively address sector-wide, systemic challenges.



While regulatory compliance assessments are focused on whether deforestation risk occurred after a given cut-off date, they often do not help identify future deforestation risk or inform collective action. The Cocoa DRA is intended to support better allocation of resources for halting deforestation and to enable collaborative approaches among cocoa supply chain actors where they’re most urgently needed to address deforestation.



For example, in Côte d’Ivoire, ECOM is using information gained from the Cocoa DRA to inform multiple efforts aiming to protect forests and support sustainability. In one project, they’re collaborating with the <a href="https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/32209.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Green Innovation Centre of GIZ</a>, the German Corporation for International Cooperation, to provide training and awareness-raising to help farmers adapt to climate change, build resilience and increase incomes through climate-smart cocoa and agroforestry. Around the protected areas of the Bossematié Nature Reserve and the Beki Classified Forest, ECOM is working to tackle deforestation and improve conservation by helping farmers in the forest buffer zone transition to agroforestry. They collaborated with GIZ to develop a management plan for the Reserve’s buffer zone and are now developing an incentive scheme based on carbon stocks and additional planting of trees for promoting agroforestry practices.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cote-dIvoire-Daloa-2048x1365.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18571"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



Additionally, two briquette production units are being installed within two of ECOM’s partner cooperatives to promote the use of sustainable briquettes made from organic waste. This initiative aims to reduce reliance on firewood to help prevent deforestation.



Finally, ECOM is also supporting local nurseries to develop plants for on- and off-farm planting and distributing trees to further accelerate the transition to agroforestry. This will all be supported by a local plan to monitor and prevent deforestation. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Peru-Forestry-2048x1356.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-18572"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: ECOM</figcaption></figure>



Using the Cocoa DRA and complementary data and tools, ECOM will continue ongoing monitoring efforts aimed at identifying and preventing future deforestation. This is a great step in the right direction, but ultimately, companies like ECOM need more solutions that can encourage collaborative approaches and continued innovation that prioritizes the needs of cocoa farmers and their communities. Only then can we truly achieve deforestation-free supply chains.



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Cocoa trader ECOM shows how companies can use data-driven resources reduce deforestation in their cocoa supply chains.

Better Cocoa: How ECOM is Reducing Deforestation in Their Supply Chain

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Ripe Cocoa pods from a cocoa farm in Ghana.

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Martina Schneider is a GIS Analyst with Global Forest Watch. She supports the GFW team in preparing data and developing content for the GFW platform and web application.



As a graduate student, Martina specialized in applying GIS in the fields of environmental science and natural resources management. Specifically, she studied wildfire ecology and environmental factors that contribute to risk of ignition. In addition, Martina worked at Ducks Unlimited, the world's leader in wetland and waterfowl conservation, where she was part of a team updating the National Wetlands Inventory in Minnesota.



Martina holds an M.S. in Geographic Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University and a B.S. in Geography from Texas A&amp;M University.



She lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband and dog.

Martina Schneider

Liz Goldman

The global demand for chocolate has had a significant impact on West African forests. Approximately 70% of the global supply of cocoa originates from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where production sites have replaced millions of hectares of forest. Between 2001 and 2015 alone, <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cocoa was linked to</a> the loss of a third of Ghana’s forest area and a quarter of Côte d’Ivoire’s.



The <a href="https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/initiative/cocoa-forests-initiative/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI)</a>, facilitated by World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the <a href="https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/cocoa-and-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)</a>, was established in 2017 in an effort to end cocoa-driven deforestation and restore forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting. To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create two new resources:*



<ul>
<li>The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC), a database of mapped cocoa plot boundaries in the direct supply chains of participating companies that provides an extensive view of mapped cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The public version of the dataset is <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on Global Forest Watch (GFW)</a> as a cocoa plot heat map that further anonymizes data to protect the privacy of farmers and companies.</li>



<li>The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA), a map that provides a standardized view of cocoa-driven deforestation risk across the cocoa growing region of these two countries. The <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> is available for download on GFW.</li>
</ul>



These resources are the result of an unprecedented collaboration among companies to share highly sensitive cocoa plot data, and an extensive ethics and legal review to ensure the protection of farmers’ data throughout the process. For the first time, companies and other stakeholders in the cocoa sector have a shared view of priority areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire for coordinated efforts toward a deforestation-free cocoa sector.



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<aside id="textbox">From Palm Oil to Cocoa
The development of the WAC and the Cocoa DRA builds on the success of similar products developed to support the palm oil sector: the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/improved-universal-mill-list-expands-partnerships-improves-transparency-in-palm-oil-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Universal Mill List (UML)</a>, a harmonized database of palm oil mill locations, and the <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/palm-risk-assessment-methodology-prioritizing-areas-landscapes-and-mills" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palm Risk Tool</a>, a method of identifying deforestation risks in their vicinity. However, differing supply chain dynamics between palm oil and cocoa were considered, such as:<li>
The locations of palm oil mills in the UML are represented as points while the cocoa plots in the WAC are represented by polygons. Further, the UML maps industrial scale infrastructure, whereas the WAC maps smallholder production. This raised additional privacy concerns, and steps were taken to avoid violating farmer privacy and safeguarding farmer livelihoods.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool analyzes deforestation risk by creating a buffer around each mill point to estimate a potential sourcing area. Oil palm fruit must be delivered to a mill quickly or the quality of the oil will decrease. This places a geographic constraint on how far oil palm fruit can travel to a mill, and stakeholders in the sector rely on a standardized sourcing radius of 50-km for their risk assessments. Cocoa does not have a geographic constraint nor an agreed upon estimation of a sourcing area, meaning that cocoa collected at a central point of purchase could have been grown anywhere in these two countries.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool was developed to assess deforestation risks in the vicinity of a specific type of infrastructure: palm oil mills. The Cocoa DRA was developed to be more flexible, enabling analysis of multiple areas of interest such as the plots in the WAC, cooperatives or other types of collection points and/or warehouses.<ul>

 </aside>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1175" height="783" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg" alt="Cocoa pod" class="wp-image-16723" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg 1175w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1175px) 100vw, 1175px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cocoa pod. Credit: Caroline Winchester, WRI.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the West Africa Cocoa dataset?</h2>



The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC) aggregates data from 2021 on cocoa plot locations (a cocoa plot is a subset of a cocoa farm, and a single farm may be represented by multiple plots) in the direct supply chains of 19 cocoa and chocolate companies operating in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Project participants developed and agreed on a data collation protocol and data sharing agreement that outlined submission requirements and the procedure for cleaning and aggregating individual company data sets. To be included in the WAC, each plot had to be current, actively growing cocoa and occupying a single parcel of land. WRI then reviewed, cleaned and aggregated the data.



While the cocoa plot polygon data is considered sensitive and will not be available publicly (see more below), we visualized the data as a heat map, <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on GFW</a>, which avoids disclosing the precise boundaries of the plots in the WAC while giving users access to information on the approximate location of cocoa plots. Additionally, we distributed the plot data to impartial research institutions for use as training data to create derivative products; specifically, public cocoa production extent maps.



These strategies make the data publicly available to support companies and other users in more robust cocoa mapping and monitoring while safeguarding the privacy of individual farmers.



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<aside id="textbox">Protecting the Privacy of Cocoa Farmers and Companies

The raw data used to create the WAC included sensitive supply chain information from both companies and farmers. Cocoa is primarily grown by smallholder farmers who live near the cocoa plots they manage. A public release of this raw data would show the boundaries of specific cocoa plots and could allow individual farmers and their homes to be identified. Further, since there are over 2 million farmers across West Africa, it is difficult to know whether they are all fully aware of how data pertaining to them is being used. 
To protect farmer and company privacy, the WAC data collection protocol and data sharing agreement were informed by an ethics review to ensure that potentially sensitive information was respected and handled properly, and by a legal review to ensure the data privacy laws of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were followed. Based off these reviews, and in order to protect farmer privacy, no personal data was included in the WAC or shared with WRI, and a secure method of transferring data among all parties was established. With farmer privacy in mind, the parties involved also decided that precise locations of cocoa plot boundaries would not be made publicly available.

 </aside>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment?</h2>



The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA) is a map that assesses the risk of future deforestation due to new or expanding cocoa production. The Cocoa DRA aligns various methods for assessing risk to provide a standardized view that companies and other stakeholders can use to make decisions around reducing deforestation. It can be used to proactively and efficiently identify deforestation risk across a supply chain that includes tens of thousands of geographically dispersed producers. Once risk has been identified, Cocoa DRA users can implement interventions for promoting sustainable production, protecting remaining forest cover and improving farmer livelihoods.



To create the map, we analyzed spatial variables that influence cocoa-linked deforestation including recent forest loss, proximity to cocoa, accessibility and suitability for cocoa production. The present-day extent of natural forest was approximated using the University of Maryland’s <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1244693" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tree canopy cover</a> data set and removing cocoa plots mapped in the WAC, <a href="https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1211/2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">other data sets</a> that <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/spatial-database-planted-trees-sdpt-version-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">map planted trees</a> and historic tree cover loss.



Primary and intact forests in West Africa are limited, so to ensure the Cocoa DRA comprehensively assesses where future cocoa-linked deforestation is likely to occur in all natural forests, its scope includes natural forests both inside and outside of protected areas as well as naturally regenerating forests.



The Cocoa DRA translates risk into five priority rankings at a 1-km resolution (high, mid-high, medium, mid-low and low priority) indicating the likelihood of future deforestation associated with cocoa production. Cocoa DRA users can assess risk at different scales, including groups of farms, supply sheds around cocoa bean collection points and other types of landscapes.



Users can download the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> on GFW.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What have we learned from the WAC and Cocoa DRA?</h2>



Across Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the WAC maps 840,000 unique cocoa plots in 2021. Though cocoa plots tend to be small (most plots were between 1 to 2 hectares), the plots included in the WAC cover approximately 1.5 million hectares of planted cocoa area.



Cocoa plot data is most comprehensive in western Côte d’Ivoire as well as near the shared border between Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The forests in these areas have been <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">particularly impacted by cocoa production</a>. We found that the Cocoa DRA showed that these same regions had a significant amount of high priority areas (areas with higher likelihood of future cocoa-related deforestation). This is most evident in Côte d’Ivoire near the border of Liberia, while in western Ghana the landscape is more mixed.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1430" height="868" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority map for 2023" class="wp-image-16731" style="aspect-ratio:1.6474654377880185;width:840px;height:auto" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png 1430w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-1024x622.png 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023-768x466.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px" /></figure>



While creating the Cocoa DRA, we found that proximity to recent loss was an important predictor of future deforestation risk. The influence of this variable is most evident in several high-interest protected areas where, presumably due to effective legal protection, forest loss has been prevented in their boundaries. Because these forests have experienced less loss compared to the surrounding landscape, this resulted in a low priority ranking for the areas.



A good example of this is Taï National Park in western Côte d’Ivoire, which contains the only remaining intact forest within the study area. This is notable because the park is located within a region of Côte d’Ivoire where forests have been significantly impacted by cocoa production. A similar example is Bia National Park in western Ghana, which contains primary forest that has experienced low rates of forest loss compared to the surrounding landscape.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="2048" height="1448" src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority ranking map (2023) showing protected areas" class="wp-image-16750" srcset="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png 2048w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-1024x724.png 1024w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-768x543.png 768w, https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-1536x1086.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /></figure>



That being said, additional data on legal status and conservation value provides important contextual information and we recommend users consider this data when using the Cocoa DRA for prioritizing engagement activities and supply chain interventions. &nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Driving collective action: How companies and others can use the WAC and Cocoa DRA</h2>



Used together, the WAC and the Cocoa DRA can inform decision making and coordinated action to reduce cocoa-driven deforestation. These resources also have utility beyond the scope of the CFI. For example, the public WAC heat map of cocoa plots may be used alongside near-real-time alerts to identify deforestation in cocoa production landscapes, or as a resource to collectively assess the industry’s progress towards ending deforestation. Use of the WAC as training data to develop public cocoa extent maps will also shed light on production across West Africa. Such accessible and holistic extent data is essential for stakeholders striving to tackle cocoa-driven deforestation.



For companies and farmers seeking to comply with the EUDR, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can also be valuable tools. The risk map can enable companies and other stakeholders to identify high-priority landscapes and prevent deforestation before it happens. To achieve this, engagement with farmers in high priority areas will be needed, enabling them to protect remaining forests while safeguarding their livelihoods. The risk map and WAC can also help companies determine where to prioritize further cocoa plot data collection efforts. High priority areas where the WAC shows a lack of mapped cocoa plots is a good indication of where such efforts are needed for enabling compliance with the EUDR’s geolocation requirement. This data will also be key for enabling inclusion of smallholder farmers in the EU market.



As public resources that provide stakeholders with a shared understanding of where it’s most urgent to address deforestation while respecting farmer privacy, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can help realize a more sustainable cocoa sector. Through this collective knowledge, stakeholders can more easily form collaborative approaches to eliminate cocoa-driven deforestation. Furthermore, through ongoing updates based on best available data, both resources can remain a public good and contribute to transparent monitoring of the cocoa sector.



* Development of these products was also informed by preliminary research carried out by Climate Focus on other methods of assessing deforestation risk associated cocoa. 



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Ending Deforestation from Cocoa in West Africa with New Data-Driven Resources

The global demand for chocolate has had a significant impact on West African forests. Approximately 70% of the global supply of cocoa originates from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where production sites have replaced millions of hectares of forest. Between 2001 and 2015 alone, <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cocoa was linked to</a> the loss of a third of Ghana’s forest area and a quarter of Côte d’Ivoire’s.



The <a href="https://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/initiative/cocoa-forests-initiative/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cocoa &amp; Forests Initiative (CFI)</a>, facilitated by World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the <a href="https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/cocoa-and-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)</a>, was established in 2017 in an effort to end cocoa-driven deforestation and restore forest areas. Companies that joined the CFI agreed to map their supply chains, align methodologies on deforestation risk assessment and contribute to transparent monitoring and reporting. To support these efforts, World Resources Institute (WRI) partnered with WCF and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create two new resources:*



<ul>
<li>The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC), a database of mapped cocoa plot boundaries in the direct supply chains of participating companies that provides an extensive view of mapped cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The public version of the dataset is <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on Global Forest Watch (GFW)</a> as a cocoa plot heat map that further anonymizes data to protect the privacy of farmers and companies.</li>



<li>The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA), a map that provides a standardized view of cocoa-driven deforestation risk across the cocoa growing region of these two countries. The <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> is available for download on GFW.</li>
</ul>



These resources are the result of an unprecedented collaboration among companies to share highly sensitive cocoa plot data, and an extensive ethics and legal review to ensure the protection of farmers’ data throughout the process. For the first time, companies and other stakeholders in the cocoa sector have a shared view of priority areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire for coordinated efforts toward a deforestation-free cocoa sector.



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<aside id="textbox">From Palm Oil to Cocoa
The development of the WAC and the Cocoa DRA builds on the success of similar products developed to support the palm oil sector: the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/improved-universal-mill-list-expands-partnerships-improves-transparency-in-palm-oil-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Universal Mill List (UML)</a>, a harmonized database of palm oil mill locations, and the <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/palm-risk-assessment-methodology-prioritizing-areas-landscapes-and-mills" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palm Risk Tool</a>, a method of identifying deforestation risks in their vicinity. However, differing supply chain dynamics between palm oil and cocoa were considered, such as:<li>
The locations of palm oil mills in the UML are represented as points while the cocoa plots in the WAC are represented by polygons. Further, the UML maps industrial scale infrastructure, whereas the WAC maps smallholder production. This raised additional privacy concerns, and steps were taken to avoid violating farmer privacy and safeguarding farmer livelihoods.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool analyzes deforestation risk by creating a buffer around each mill point to estimate a potential sourcing area. Oil palm fruit must be delivered to a mill quickly or the quality of the oil will decrease. This places a geographic constraint on how far oil palm fruit can travel to a mill, and stakeholders in the sector rely on a standardized sourcing radius of 50-km for their risk assessments. Cocoa does not have a geographic constraint nor an agreed upon estimation of a sourcing area, meaning that cocoa collected at a central point of purchase could have been grown anywhere in these two countries.<li>
The Palm Risk Tool was developed to assess deforestation risks in the vicinity of a specific type of infrastructure: palm oil mills. The Cocoa DRA was developed to be more flexible, enabling analysis of multiple areas of interest such as the plots in the WAC, cooperatives or other types of collection points and/or warehouses.<ul>

 </aside>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-pod.jpg" alt="Cocoa pod" class="wp-image-16723"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cocoa pod. Credit: Caroline Winchester, WRI.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the West Africa Cocoa dataset?</h2>



The West Africa Cocoa dataset (WAC) aggregates data from 2021 on cocoa plot locations (a cocoa plot is a subset of a cocoa farm, and a single farm may be represented by multiple plots) in the direct supply chains of 19 cocoa and chocolate companies operating in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Project participants developed and agreed on a data collation protocol and data sharing agreement that outlined submission requirements and the procedure for cleaning and aggregating individual company data sets. To be included in the WAC, each plot had to be current, actively growing cocoa and occupying a single parcel of land. WRI then reviewed, cleaned and aggregated the data.



While the cocoa plot polygon data is considered sensitive and will not be available publicly (see more below), we visualized the data as a heat map, <a href="https://gfw.global/4bEEES2">available on GFW</a>, which avoids disclosing the precise boundaries of the plots in the WAC while giving users access to information on the approximate location of cocoa plots. Additionally, we distributed the plot data to impartial research institutions for use as training data to create derivative products; specifically, public cocoa production extent maps.



These strategies make the data publicly available to support companies and other users in more robust cocoa mapping and monitoring while safeguarding the privacy of individual farmers.



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<aside id="textbox">Protecting the Privacy of Cocoa Farmers and Companies

The raw data used to create the WAC included sensitive supply chain information from both companies and farmers. Cocoa is primarily grown by smallholder farmers who live near the cocoa plots they manage. A public release of this raw data would show the boundaries of specific cocoa plots and could allow individual farmers and their homes to be identified. Further, since there are over 2 million farmers across West Africa, it is difficult to know whether they are all fully aware of how data pertaining to them is being used. 
To protect farmer and company privacy, the WAC data collection protocol and data sharing agreement were informed by an ethics review to ensure that potentially sensitive information was respected and handled properly, and by a legal review to ensure the data privacy laws of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were followed. Based off these reviews, and in order to protect farmer privacy, no personal data was included in the WAC or shared with WRI, and a secure method of transferring data among all parties was established. With farmer privacy in mind, the parties involved also decided that precise locations of cocoa plot boundaries would not be made publicly available.

 </aside>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is the Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment?</h2>



The Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment (Cocoa DRA) is a map that assesses the risk of future deforestation due to new or expanding cocoa production. The Cocoa DRA aligns various methods for assessing risk to provide a standardized view that companies and other stakeholders can use to make decisions around reducing deforestation. It can be used to proactively and efficiently identify deforestation risk across a supply chain that includes tens of thousands of geographically dispersed producers. Once risk has been identified, Cocoa DRA users can implement interventions for promoting sustainable production, protecting remaining forest cover and improving farmer livelihoods.



To create the map, we analyzed spatial variables that influence cocoa-linked deforestation including recent forest loss, proximity to cocoa, accessibility and suitability for cocoa production. The present-day extent of natural forest was approximated using the University of Maryland’s <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1244693" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tree canopy cover</a> data set and removing cocoa plots mapped in the WAC, <a href="https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/1211/2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">other data sets</a> that <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/spatial-database-planted-trees-sdpt-version-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">map planted trees</a> and historic tree cover loss.



Primary and intact forests in West Africa are limited, so to ensure the Cocoa DRA comprehensively assesses where future cocoa-linked deforestation is likely to occur in all natural forests, its scope includes natural forests both inside and outside of protected areas as well as naturally regenerating forests.



The Cocoa DRA translates risk into five priority rankings at a 1-km resolution (high, mid-high, medium, mid-low and low priority) indicating the likelihood of future deforestation associated with cocoa production. Cocoa DRA users can assess risk at different scales, including groups of farms, supply sheds around cocoa bean collection points and other types of landscapes.



Users can download the <a href="https://data.globalforestwatch.org/documents/gfw::cocoa-deforestation-risk-assessment/about">Cocoa DRA map layer</a> on GFW.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What have we learned from the WAC and Cocoa DRA?</h2>



Across Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the WAC maps 840,000 unique cocoa plots in 2021. Though cocoa plots tend to be small (most plots were between 1 to 2 hectares), the plots included in the WAC cover approximately 1.5 million hectares of planted cocoa area.



Cocoa plot data is most comprehensive in western Côte d’Ivoire as well as near the shared border between Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The forests in these areas have been <a href="https://research.wri.org/gfr/forest-extent-indicators/deforestation-agriculture#how-much-forest-has-been-replaced-by-cocoa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">particularly impacted by cocoa production</a>. We found that the Cocoa DRA showed that these same regions had a significant amount of high priority areas (areas with higher likelihood of future cocoa-related deforestation). This is most evident in Côte d’Ivoire near the border of Liberia, while in western Ghana the landscape is more mixed.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Cocoa-Deforestation-Risk-Assessment-Priority-2023.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority map for 2023" class="wp-image-16731" style="aspect-ratio:1.6474654377880185;width:840px;height:auto"/></figure>



While creating the Cocoa DRA, we found that proximity to recent loss was an important predictor of future deforestation risk. The influence of this variable is most evident in several high-interest protected areas where, presumably due to effective legal protection, forest loss has been prevented in their boundaries. Because these forests have experienced less loss compared to the surrounding landscape, this resulted in a low priority ranking for the areas.



A good example of this is Taï National Park in western Côte d’Ivoire, which contains the only remaining intact forest within the study area. This is notable because the park is located within a region of Côte d’Ivoire where forests have been significantly impacted by cocoa production. A similar example is Bia National Park in western Ghana, which contains primary forest that has experienced low rates of forest loss compared to the surrounding landscape.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://content.globalforestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tai-and-bia_labels-1-2048x1448.png" alt="Cocoa deforestation risk assessment priority ranking map (2023) showing protected areas" class="wp-image-16750"/></figure>



That being said, additional data on legal status and conservation value provides important contextual information and we recommend users consider this data when using the Cocoa DRA for prioritizing engagement activities and supply chain interventions. &nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Driving collective action: How companies and others can use the WAC and Cocoa DRA</h2>



Used together, the WAC and the Cocoa DRA can inform decision making and coordinated action to reduce cocoa-driven deforestation. These resources also have utility beyond the scope of the CFI. For example, the public WAC heat map of cocoa plots may be used alongside near-real-time alerts to identify deforestation in cocoa production landscapes, or as a resource to collectively assess the industry’s progress towards ending deforestation. Use of the WAC as training data to develop public cocoa extent maps will also shed light on production across West Africa. Such accessible and holistic extent data is essential for stakeholders striving to tackle cocoa-driven deforestation.



For companies and farmers seeking to comply with the EUDR, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can also be valuable tools. The risk map can enable companies and other stakeholders to identify high-priority landscapes and prevent deforestation before it happens. To achieve this, engagement with farmers in high priority areas will be needed, enabling them to protect remaining forests while safeguarding their livelihoods. The risk map and WAC can also help companies determine where to prioritize further cocoa plot data collection efforts. High priority areas where the WAC shows a lack of mapped cocoa plots is a good indication of where such efforts are needed for enabling compliance with the EUDR’s geolocation requirement. This data will also be key for enabling inclusion of smallholder farmers in the EU market.



As public resources that provide stakeholders with a shared understanding of where it’s most urgent to address deforestation while respecting farmer privacy, the WAC and Cocoa DRA can help realize a more sustainable cocoa sector. Through this collective knowledge, stakeholders can more easily form collaborative approaches to eliminate cocoa-driven deforestation. Furthermore, through ongoing updates based on best available data, both resources can remain a public good and contribute to transparent monitoring of the cocoa sector.



* Development of these products was also informed by preliminary research carried out by Climate Focus on other methods of assessing deforestation risk associated cocoa. 



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Two new data-driven resources provide a shared view of priority areas in West Africa and can help realize a a deforestation-free cocoa sector.

Ending Deforestation from Cocoa in West Africa | GFW Blog

forest quality

forest quality | Global Forest Watch Blog

logging

logging | Global Forest Watch Blog

policy

policy | Global Forest Watch Blog

Sarah Carter

Fred Stolle

Tina Schneider

Ruth Nogueron

Monitoring Forest Degradation for the EU Deforestation Regulation Using GFW

Under the EUDR, wood products entering the EU market must be degradation-free. Tools like GFW can help companies monitor for degradation.

Monitoring Forest Degradation for the EUDR | GFW Blog

Anne Rosenbarger

This blog is part 1 in a two-part series, and explores how GFW data can help monitor for deforestation under the EUDR. <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/">Read part 2 on </a><a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/">degradation</a><a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/commodities/monitoring-forest-degradation-eudr/"> here</a>. 



In May 2023, the European Union (EU) adopted a regulation that aims to prevent products and commodities linked to deforestation and forest degradation from being sold in the EU, thereby supporting global efforts to mitigate climate change such as the Paris Agreement and pledges to halt deforestation and degradation made at COP26. Under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), companies must show that commodities placed on the EU market are deforestation- or degradation-free.&nbsp;



The EUDR has a cut-off-date of December 31, 2020, meaning that products and commodities linked to deforestation or forest degradation after that date are not permitted in EU markets. The commodities required to be deforestation-free are cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy and rubber, as well as derived products such as beef and chocolate. Wood and derived products such as furniture must also be degradation-free. (Although rubber is included with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] definition of a forest, under the EUDR it is considered an agricultural commodity and as such is required to be deforestation- rather than degradation-free.)&nbsp;



To ensure all covered commodities — both imported and domestically produced — are in compliance with the regulation, companies need to monitor supply chains globally to cover any area where commodities that enter the EU market are sourced. The EUDR requires suppliers to provide the geocoordinates of plots of land where relevant commodities and products were produced, and to provide due diligence information for all these locations.&nbsp;



In this blog, we explore the regulation and describe relevant data and tools — specifically those available on Global Forest Watch (GFW) — that companies, governments and others can use to establish whether commodities are deforestation-free, while highlighting areas where new data can improve assessments in the future. We discuss how satellite data can support three monitoring needs: 1. Setting a forest baseline; 2. Tracking deforestation; 3. Mapping commodities.&nbsp;



Before discussing these monitoring needs, we first explore why satellite data is useful. &nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why is satellite data important for monitoring the EUDR?</h2>



<aside id="textbox"> <div>Sources of satellite data: GFW, GFW Pro and the EU Forest ObservatoryThe EUDR does not prescribe the use of any specific forest reference data set or platform. Available public maps don’t have legal value, but they can help companies comply with this regulation in assessing deforestation risk – though companies must carry out due diligence as outlined in the regulation. 

One data platform, GFW Pro, was designed with leading companies and financial institutions to translate geospatial data into actionable insights. GFW Pro users can produce assessments for reporting against commitments and policies based on free and open GFW data. User-friendly workflows guide users to produce reports for their supply chain. Reports can be produced for any location and partners can access secure systems with their user credentials to view reports and provide updated information into the system. GFW Pro has already been used by companies to assess compliance with voluntary commitments and will soon support EUDR compliance assessments. 

At the same time, new data on forests is being developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, and like all new data sets, this will be considered for integration into GFW to ensure the best data is available to GFW users. 

The JRC is also developing the EU Forest Observatory to support the implementation of the EUDR by providing scientific evidence regarding global deforestation and forest degradation and related trade. JRC already provides a pan tropical data set on changes in tropical moist forest cover at 30-m resolution based on satellite data. In the future, JRC will integrate 10-m Sentinel satellite data and will provide a forest cover map for 2020 that will be made available on a dedicated web platform. Though promising, this data is not yet available, and there is not yet a precise date for the full operationalization of the Observatory. 
</div> </aside>



Forest-related satellite data, such as that available on GFW,&nbsp;allows forests everywhere to be monitored remotely from anywhere in the world. Commodities included in the regulation span large areas, meaning it is not possible to visit every location on the ground. Additionally, historical satellite data shows the status of forests before the cut-off-date.



The EUDR provides definitions of <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32023R1115&qid=1686611894470" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">key concepts</a>, such as forest, deforestation and agriculture, which largely follow the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/global-forest-watch-and-the-forest-resources-assessment-explained-in-5-graphics-2/">United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) definitions</a>. Taken at face value, the definitions used in the EUDR and those used by satellite derived data do not exactly match up. Satellite derived tree cover data is based on biophysical metrics, such as tree height and canopy density, while FAO definitions also use land use criteria. Data users must take steps to match the definitions derived from satellite information to the definitions set out in the EUDR more closely, and we discuss these steps for three monitoring needs:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Setting a forest baseline</h2>



Understanding the extent of forests as of December 31, 2020, is crucial since the EUDR requires that commodities cannot be sourced from areas that were forested before the cut-off date. The EUDR defines “forest” as: “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ, excluding land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.”



The <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InVtZC10cmVlLWhlaWdodCIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJ1bWQtdHJlZS1oZWlnaHQtMjAyMCJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">tree cover height data</a> available on GFW from the University of Maryland (UMD) is a reasonable proxy. This global data set shows the height of trees (defined as woody vegetation) taller than 3 m within 30-m pixels in the years 2000 and 2020. To better match the EUDR definition, one can apply a 5-m threshold for tree cover height and set a 0.5 hectare minimum mapping unit to the 2020 data, which aligns with the regulation cut-off date. This data only includes tree cover with a canopy cover greater than approximately 23%, however, other data on canopy cover density is available for 2000 and 2010, so could be incorporated to account for lower canopy cover forests.



An even closer approximation of the EUDR’s definition of forest is the natural forest class from the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) <a href="https://www.landcarbonlab.org/news-updates/natural-lands-map-companies-no-conversion-targets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Natural Lands Map</a>, available on GFW Pro in the coming months. The Natural Lands Map, developed by SBTN and WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab, allows users to identify a baseline of natural forests as of 2020 because it removes <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtcGxhbnRhdGlvbnMiLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlLCJsYXllcnMiOlsidHJlZS1wbGFudGF0aW9ucyJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">plantations and tree crops</a>, as well as trees in urban areas, and integrates local data sources on natural forest where available. Forests are identified as areas greater than 0.5 hectares with trees at least 5 m in height. Companies can use the Natural Lands Map to understand&nbsp;if their production or sourcing activities have caused conversion since 2020 or if their future plans pose a risk of deforestation.



The EUDR definition of forest also includes land that does not currently have tree cover but where trees are able to reach the height and canopy cover thresholds set out in the definition — for example, areas where timber harvesting has left the land temporarily unstocked. This is difficult to map using biophysical metrics derived from satellite data, and as such, GFW’s <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/tree-cover-data-comparison/">tree cover height and tree canopy cover data sets</a> and the SBTN natural forest class do not capture land that does not currently have tree cover. Future research using historical tree cover data and the non-natural forest class from the Natural Lands Map could assist in identifying these areas. GFW provides tree cover information from 2000, annual losses thereafter, and gain for specific intervals (e.g., 2000-2020), also at 30 m x 30 m pixels, so these data sets could be used in this context.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Tracking deforestation</h2>



The EUDR defines deforestation as: “the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not.” In the context of the regulation, cattle grazing, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber and soy are considered to be agricultural land use, while timber is not (conversion of natural forest for timber can instead lead to degradation, which is also covered by the EUDR but is outside of the scope of this blog).



The <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtY292ZXItbG9zcyIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJ0cmVlLWNvdmVyLWxvc3MiXX0seyJkYXRhc2V0IjoicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiZGlzcHV0ZWQtcG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyJdLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlfV19&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">tree cover loss data set</a> from UMD and available on GFW, provided annually at 30-m resolution, is widely used to assess change in forest cover. Novel data sets such as GFW’s near-real-time <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6ImludGVncmF0ZWQtZGVmb3Jlc3RhdGlvbi1hbGVydHMtOGJpdCIsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsImxheWVycyI6WyJpbnRlZ3JhdGVkLWRlZm9yZXN0YXRpb24tYWxlcnRzLThiaXQiXX0seyJkYXRhc2V0IjoicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiZGlzcHV0ZWQtcG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiLCJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyJdLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlfV19&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">integrated deforestation alerts</a> can also enable continuous monitoring and early notifications on possible deforestation, which is important for enforcing the regulation. Combining this forest change data with the Natural Lands Map provides a timely indication of where forest loss is happening.



Neither of these data sets maps deforestation as defined by the regulation since they include some forest losses beyond conversion to the commodity crops listed in the EUDR (e.g., loss due to natural causes and loss of tree cover resulting from forestry activities such as timber harvesting and conversion to plantation forests). However, when combined with detailed commodity sourcing areas provided by companies, these data sets are a reasonable proxy for deforestation since those sourcing areas likely have active agricultural production. Visual assessments of high-resolution satellite images, such as those from Planet and available on GFW, can also be used to identify drivers of deforestation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mapping commodities</h2>



GFW also has a number of data sets that can help identify which losses are linked to agricultural conversion in the absence of detailed sourcing information. For example, <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InRyZWUtY292ZXItbG9zcy1ieS1kb21pbmFudC1kcml2ZXIiLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlLCJsYXllcnMiOlsidHJlZS1jb3Zlci1sb3NzLWJ5LWRvbWluYW50LWRyaXZlciJdfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoiZm9yZXN0Q2hhbmdlIn0%3D">dominant drivers of tree cover loss</a> and <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6InVtZC1zb3ktcGxhbnRlZC1hcmVhIiwib3BhY2l0eSI6MSwidmlzaWJpbGl0eSI6dHJ1ZSwibGF5ZXJzIjpbInVtZC1zb3ktcGxhbnRlZC1hcmVhIl19LHsiZGF0YXNldCI6InBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIiwibGF5ZXJzIjpbImRpc3B1dGVkLXBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIiwicG9saXRpY2FsLWJvdW5kYXJpZXMiXSwib3BhY2l0eSI6MSwidmlzaWJpbGl0eSI6dHJ1ZX1dfQ%3D%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">soy planted area</a>.



<aside id="textbox"> <div>Supporting traceability assessments Maps of commodities are also useful in support of traceability assessments. To comply with the EUDR, companies first need to trace each unit purchased to a production area. However, supply chains are often large, fluid and complex — particularly when trying to trace back to individual farm levels. Crop maps can help identify where crops are grown and can help verify commodity sourcing location claims, but this is not necessarily straightforward, and additional work must be done to differentiate individual property boundaries, ownership, legal status and supply chain linkages. Indeed, deforestation is just one part of the regulation, which also states that commodities must also be compliant with all relevant applicable laws in force in the country of production (for example, labor laws). These elements will be additional challenges for commodity producers to monitor.
</div> </aside>



Maps of commodities can also be useful to verify the geolocation of sourcing areas provided by companies, however, there are several gaps in availability. Many maps are regional; for example, information on cocoa is only available for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00751-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">certain countries</a>, while others have dates preceding the regulation cut-off-date, such as oil palm.



GFW is continuously providing updates to commodity maps and deforestation drivers information. Where commodity data is not available, visual assessments of high-resolution data imagery such as <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/?map=eyJiYXNlbWFwIjp7InZhbHVlIjoicGxhbmV0IiwiY29sb3IiOiIiLCJuYW1lIjoicGxhbmV0X21lZHJlc19ub3JtYWxpemVkX2FuYWx5dGljXzIwMjMtMDVfbW9zYWljIiwiaW1hZ2VUeXBlIjoiYW5hbHl0aWMifSwiZGF0YXNldHMiOlt7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJwb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsImxheWVycyI6WyJkaXNwdXRlZC1wb2xpdGljYWwtYm91bmRhcmllcyIsInBvbGl0aWNhbC1ib3VuZGFyaWVzIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XX0%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6ImRhdGFzZXRzIiwiZGF0YXNldENhdGVnb3J5IjoibGFuZENvdmVyIn0%3D">Planet</a> or similar data can also be used to assess accuracy for locations given by commodity providers to verify that the areas they are sourcing from were already agricultural areas and should not be considered forest.



For example, oil palm has a distinctive star-shaped pattern that is easily identifiable when visually interpreting this high-resolution data. However, it may be necessary to do an on-the-ground visit to areas where good high-resolution data is not available, such as due to cloud cover or where the land use is not clear in the image. Specifically, tree crops covered by the EUDR such as cocoa can be difficult to distinguish from natural forest cover since they are often grown under the canopy of natural forests, which is captured in the satellite images.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The EUDR and beyond</h2>



Enforcement of the EUDR is an important step toward the protection of the world’s forests, and assessments against these requirements can be used to ensure that only deforestation-free commodities are entering the EU market. Although there are challenges to linking satellite data with the requirements of regulations such as the EUDR, a combination of open data sets and tools such as the tree cover loss data, the Natural Lands Map and GFW Pro can be used for transparent reporting against deforestation-free requirements.



However, there are still other challenges related to the EUDR.



Firstly, sellers in the EU market are expected to adopt potentially challenging and expensive monitoring approaches. Sufficient support must be provided to ensure that livelihoods — such as those of the many smallholder farmers and economies relying on these transactions — are protected. GFW’s free and easy-to-use platform makes monitoring data and tools available to those producers, and therefore is an important part of a set of programs and incentives that can support smallholders and prevent them from being excluded from the market.



Secondly, deforestation should be avoided in all forests, not just in areas where deforestation is linked to EU markets. The global nature of GFW’s data sets and the tailored monitoring approaches offered by GFW Pro pave the way for monitoring and enforcing other complimentary regulations and deforestation commitments.



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3 Ways Global Forest Watch Can Support the EU Law on Deforestation-free Supply Chains