UK imports in 2024 linked to forest destruction the size of a major city, despite government pledges to tackle the global nature emergency
Consumers in the UK are still at risk of buying goods linked to deforestation, despite a law introduced in 2021 to clean up supply chains and ban such trade.
New analysis from Global Witness reveals that the UK’s imports of “forest-risk” commodities, including beef, soy and palm oil, have wiped out areas of the world’s forests the size of major cities like Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff over the last year – the same year that Labour pledged to tackle what they call a “nature emergency”.
Ending the use of products linked to forest destruction should have been controlled by the Environment Act, which the UK introduced in 2021 to force companies to check their supply chains for goods grown on illegally deforested land.
But years later, that law still hasn’t been enacted due to successive government delays, leaving the door wide open for “forest-risk” products tainted by deforestation and human rights abuses on the UK market.
In numbers: UK direct imports contribute to climate-critical forest destruction
Nearly half of the deforestation-linked products imported to the UK last year were shipped in within the first six months of Labour’s new term, according to our analysis.
Of the 13,500 hectares of global deforestation linked to the UK’s main forest-risk imports last year – cattle products, soy, oil palm, cocoa, coffee and rubber – 6,150ha was linked to these commodities in those early months of the current Labour government.
The UK’s total deforestation footprint linked to these direct imports grew by more than 39,300ha – an area of land bigger than the UK’s New Forest – since the Environment Act was passed in November 2021.
This is likely to be an underestimate of the true size. Our analysis only looks at the import of raw goods and not when they are used in another product – for example, palm oil in shampoo or chocolate.
Below is a breakdown of the amount of deforestation linked to certain UK forest-risk imports between November 2021 and December 2024.
Cattle is the biggest culprit
Cattle products from Brazil are the worst offender for deforestation from the list of the UK’s direct imports, linked to 12,856ha between November 2021 and December 2024 – almost a third of the UK’s total deforestation footprint since the Environment Act was passed.
This deforestation exposure for one group of products in Brazil outstrips all “forest-risk” imports from Papua New Guinea (a major producer of palm oil, which threatens the world’s third-largest rainforest) and Côte D’Ivoire combined.
Palm oil closely follows cattle products as a driver of forest destruction, with links to 11,644.5ha of deforested land globally to feed UK markets. Papua New Guinea and Indonesia’s forests have taken an especially sizeable hit thanks to products imported by the UK last year – 10,975.9ha can be traced to the country’s direct imports of palm oil.
In multiple investigations, we have shown how preventable forest destruction is traced back to agribusinesses’ questionable supply chains worldwide.
In Papua New Guinea, we found that three logging companies – East New Britain Resources Group, Rumbunan Hijau Group an Bewani Oil Palm Plantations Limited – deforested at least 74,100ha of forest between 2007 and 2019, before planting oil palm on the cleared land.
Our Beef Watch bot reported found that deforestation of 400ha of land in Brazil – the equivalent of an area larger than London’s Hampstead Heath – in one year could be traced back to JBS’s indirect suppliers.
Accusations of illegal deforestation, land grabs and violence against Indigenous Peoples also mar meatpackers’ supply chains in Brazil’s Apytewera Indigenous land, where cattle ranchers supplied some 8,000 cows to JBS between 2018 and 2023.
Members of the Parakanã community, who reside in the Apytewera territory, described the unrelenting aggression they face from land grabbers. In one attack, invaders burned down an entire village.
“They destroyed everything,” Mama Parakanã, chief of Apyterewa Indigenous Village, told our investigators. “All we have left is grass. Our animals burned to death.”
Ecosystem collapse
It cannot be stated enough just how crucial the world’s forests are to ensuring a safe and temperate environment for the years to come.
By absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stowing it in tree trunks, leaves, roots and the soil, forests like the Amazon and the Cerrado savannah act as powerful carbon sinks that help to regulate the planet’s atmospheric temperature.
The dramatic forest loss we have seen in recent decades is concerning. On top of the emissions caused by fossil fuels, deforestation is an emitter itself, as trees release much of the CO2 they have locked up into the air when they’re cut down – especially if the wood is burned.
If deforestation were a country, it would be the third-highest emitter of CO2 after the US and China.
Tropical forests also provide vital habitats to an unimaginable array of plant and animal species. The Amazon alone is home to 10% of the world’s known biodiversity, including keystone species like the jaguar and some 40,000 plant species.
But as our planet’s forests continue to be destroyed to make way for the production of goods, all the while lining the pockets of agribusinesses and financial institutions, researchers have raised the alarm that biodiversity in these habitats could be on the brink of the collapse.
If pressures on the Amazon do not alleviate, up to 47% of its forest could reach a “tipping point” by 2050, leading to a sudden and significant loss of the biome’s biodiversity, according to a 2024 Nature study.
What happened to the Environment Act?
The UK government has described the Environment Act as “world leading”, but we beg to differ.
Despite the Environmental Audit Committee's (EAC) advice to strengthen the law to cover all deforestation and human rights, the Environment Act only bans goods linked to illegal deforestation, allowing much "forest-risk" trade to continue.
Currently, the law is insufficiently clear about the human rights checks that businesses should do on their supply chains.
Yet even those goods grown on illegally deforested land have escaped effective regulation in the years since the Environment Act passed, due to terminal delays in introducing what are known as “secondary regulations”.
These are the rules needed to bring the law into force, with key information about how businesses should conduct their due diligence and on what commodities.
Although the last government announced a list of commodities that could be covered by the law at COP28 in December 2023, Labour is yet to introduce these vital rules.
We have already waited over three years for this law to come into force. Further delays will only leave the UK liable for more forest destruction, more carbon emissions, more violence against Indigenous Peoples and more strain on thousands of already struggling plant and animal species.
