Uncovering major types of deforestation frontiers across the world’s tropical dry woodlands

Abstract

Tropical dry woodlands are rapidly being lost to agricultural expansion, but how deforestation dynamics play out in these woodlands remains poorly understood. We have developed an approach to detect and map high-level patterns of deforestation frontiers, that is, the expansion of woodland loss across continents in unprecedented spatio-temporal detail. Deforestation in tropical dry woodlands is pervasive, with over 71 Mha lost since 2000 and one-third of wooded areas located in deforestation frontiers. Over 24.3 Mha of deforestation frontiers fall into what we term ‘rampant frontiers’. These are characterized by drastic woodland loss and conditions favourable for capital-intensive agriculture, as seen in the South American Chaco and Southeast Asia. We have found many active and emerging frontiers (~59% of all frontiers), mostly in the understudied dry woodlands of Africa and Asia, where greater frontier monitoring is needed. Our approach enables consistent, repeatable frontier monitoring, and our global frontier typology fosters comparative research and context-specific policymaking.