The clearing of forests for growing rubber “has been substantially underestimated” in figures used to develop policy on deforestation, new research finds.
The study, published in Nature, uses satellite data to produce high-resolution maps of rubber-driven forest loss in south-east Asia since 1993.
It finds that more than 4m hectares of tropical forests have been lost to rubber plantations in south-east Asia over the last three decades – at least two-to-three times more than previously thought. More than 1m ha of plantations have been established in key biodiversity areas.
The greatest forest losses occurred in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, the research says. In Cambodia, more than 40% of rubber plantations were associated with deforestation, of which 19% was in key biodiversity areas.
The study has important implications for both domestic and global policy, one author tells Carbon Brief, with rubber causing “more deforestation than is assumed in data that underpinned policy in both the EU and the G7”.
However, they caution that rubber – a substantial and sustainable source of income for smallholder farmers with significant climate benefits – should not be “demonised” because of deforestation data.
Use, drivers and estimates
Used by the Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica for generations before it was “discovered” by colonial regimes and introduced to other tropical regions, rubber is one of the most important crops that emerged from the rainforest.
Natural rubber is made by “tapping” a sticky sap called latex by making incisions in the bark of certain types of trees – predominantly the Hevea brasiliensis, a deciduous tree native to the Amazon basin that is now common across the tropics. The latex collected in cups is then processed to make it less brittle and treated with heat for durability.
Today, south-east Asia accounts for 90% of the global rubber production, with the rest coming from South and central America and, more recently, west and central Africa. It is closely tied to tropical deforestation, which is largely driven by consumption in global markets.
Around 85% of all natural rubber is produced by smallholder farmers on plantations that are often less than 5ha in size. This makes them hard to capture in satellite imagery and national crop statistics.
It is also difficult to distinguish rubber trees in satellite images because they appear quite similar to the forests they are grown adjacent to. Heavy cloud cover in rainforest regions further complicates the picture.
The study authors use high-resolution satellite imagery to map smallholder plantations, using composites across multiple years to tackle the challenges of cloud cover. They then zeroed in on a distinctive seasonal signature for rubber, based on when plantations shed and regain their leaves, to distinguish rubber plantations from evergreen and deciduous tropical forests.
According to the study, mature rubber plantations occupied an area of 14.2m ha in south-east Asia in 2021, with 70% of the production located in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Rubber-related deforestation was most widespread in Indonesia, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. The study also found that 40% of all rubber plantations in Cambodia were associated with deforestation – the highest proportion of any country studied – with 19% of this area located in areas of key biodiversity value.
The chart below shows the cumulative area of rubber-related deforestation in individual countries in south-east Asia over 2001-16. The orange bars represent the amount of deforestation that occurred in key biodiversity areas and the yellow bars show the amount of deforestation elsewhere. The circles represent the percentage of rubber production that was associated with deforestation within this period.
The figures from this study for forest loss in Cambodia are “several hundredfold” higher than previous estimates relied on to inform EU, G7 and UK policy, according to the study.
Prof Antje Ahrends, head of genetics and conservation at the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh and one of the authors of the research, warns that the study’s estimates – while significantly higher than most – are still understated. She tells Carbon Brief:
“You have to set a threshold on the imagery: if you set the threshold too low, then you are at risk of including all sorts of areas that are already heavily degraded, and if you set the threshold too high, then you miss lots of deforestation. So we actually opted for a very conservative threshold.”
Prof Erik Meijaard, an ecologist associated with the University of Kent who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the study helps fill a “massive knowledge gap”. He says:
“It’s great that the authors of this paper have mapped rubber, because unless we know where these crops are growing, we have absolutely no idea what their impacts have been on the environment.”
Meijaard, who is the director of scientific consultancy Borneo Futures and currently co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Oil Crops Task Force, adds:
“We’ve been trained to think of a particular crop having certain environmental or social characteristics: like palm oil is bad because it drives tropical deforestation, but tropical deforestation is only part of the story.
“In west Africa, where palm oil traditionally comes from, it is produced and consumed locally and is a part of local cuisine and culture, which is a very different context from palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia produced for global markets.
“It really isn’t about the crop, like rubber in this case, but about the system in which different commodities are produced, traded and consumed and the length of the value chain associated with them.”
Prices and plantations
A number of complex and interlinked factors influence the timing of rubber plantation expansion, from national policies and subsidies to prices for other crops. In some countries, such as Cambodia and Vietnam, expansion is significantly linked to global rubber prices.
The chart below shows the total area of rubber-related deforestation in south-east Asian countries between 1993 and 2016, alongside global rubber prices, indicated by the black line. The colours show the fraction of overall deforestation that occurred in individual countries: Laos (pink), Cambodia (light green), Myanmar (red), China (orange), Malaysia (gold), Vietnam (yellow), Indonesia (light blue) and Thailand (blue).
The researchers point out that following the rubber price crash in 2011, land that was deforested during the early 2000s rubber boom may have been converted to other lucrative land uses. These lands are not included in the study’s estimates.
They warn that although prices are currently low, deforestation for rubber has been volatile since the crash.
Additionally, the study finds that in some countries, palm oil has expanded into areas where rubber was traditionally grown, with new rubber plantations then being established elsewhere, driving further deforestation.
Traceability, penalties and opportunities
Unprocessed rubber has a long shelf life and can be transported and stored for long periods of time, especially when prices are low.
This proves especially tricky to account for in policies that include traceability requirements, such as the EU’s new deforestation regulation. Under these rules, companies have to provide precise geographical information locating the farmland where their products were grown or raised.
Rubber was included in the final list of commodities targeted by the EU legislation, even though the European Commission’s own impact assessment report for the law stated that it “account[ed] for the smallest fraction of embodied deforestation” and its inclusion would have “limited return” in curbing deforestation. (See: Carbon Brief’s detailed explainer on the EU deforestation regulation.)
Ahrends tells Carbon Brief:
“Because rubber is non-perishable, the typical top-down approach of tracing things for rubber won’t work. It stops being traceable because you don’t know how the rubber got to the processing facility.
“I think that challenge is actually better addressed from the bottom up, so that you work with smallholder cooperatives who jointly negotiate a price and can collectively say that the rubber comes from this region, versus vying with millions of smallholders competing for an already very low rubber price.”
She adds that it is “absolutely” critical that the EU deforestation regulators distinguish between farmers renewing existing rubber plantations and new deforestation of natural forest for new plantations.
The intent of the study is “not to demonise, but encourage smallholder production”, while also ensuring rubber does not lead to continued deforestation, Ahrends says. She adds:
“Rubber is a really good income source for smallholders, if it can be managed properly. It can store up to 250 tonnes of carbon per hectare. If you have the choice between a field of pineapple and field of rubber, rubber is also environmentally the better choice: less pesticide, more carbon storage, better longevity, you can intercrop it, form agroforests you could never do with pineapple.
“Natural rubber is also much better than synthetic rubber, which is produced from, essentially, fossil fuels.”
She stresses the importance of educating farmers to minimise deforestation and form cooperatives to use fewer pesticides and not “overtap” trees, so that plantations do not need to be replaced so quickly. Rubber trees typically have an economic lifetime of 20 to 30 years.
Meijaard says it is important to look at how governments decide to allocate land for agricultural production and how to design land use optimally to deliver the highest environmental opportunities and retain natural areas. He tells Carbon Brief:
“I hope that the global discussion around this paper is not going to be ‘my god, we have another devastating crop that’s wiping out Indonesian rainforest’. That’s not particularly useful. The discussion I hope we have and should all be involved in is: how do you produce the commodities that the world needs and requires most optimally, from a nutritional, social and an environmental perspective?”
The post Rubber drives ‘at least twice’ as much deforestation as previously thought appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Rubber drives ‘at least twice’ as much deforestation as previously thought
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.
The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.
Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.
Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.
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Experts say that despite dismissing the lawsuit, the ruling sets a precedent by confirming that climate science can establish legal liability for the damage caused by emissions
Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.
Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.
In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.
Corporate lobbying in the shadows
Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.
“That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”
The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.
The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.
Green groups fail to stop bill
The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.
But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.
A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.
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Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.
But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.
The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.
Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”
Copycat legislation on the rise
New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.
In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.
The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.
“Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.
The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.
New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS.
Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in the world. But in 2026, the government sharply reduced how much of its nickel can be extracted from the ground.
Production quotas were reduced by around 40% this year compared to 2025. Weda Bay, the largest nickel mine on Earth, had its allowance cut by more than 70% and exhausted its full-year quota by the end of May, halting mining entirely; it cannot resume large-scale extraction until next year unless regulators grant an extension.
The policy has sparked a vivid debate in Indonesian policy circles: how can the country shift its strategy from a decade of mining vast quantities of cheap nickel to producing a high-value and low-carbon material that the rest of the world wants for EV batteries.
The cuts aren’t a silver bullet to clean up Indonesia’s nickel industry, whose smelters are powered by coal – the most polluting fossil fuels. But alongside stricter enforcement of environmental rules, it is one side of efforts to produce more sustainable nickel for a premium.
Restricting Indonesia’s nickel output
Production quotas were introduced to stop the collapse of nickel prices because of oversupply in the market. Prices had fallen more than 40% in 2023 alone and kept sliding as Indonesian supply kept growing, hitting a four-year low of around $13,900 a ton in late 2025.
Critics called the recent tightening of production quotas proof that Indonesia’s nickel strategy has failed, arguing that the industry shouldn’t need to throttle its own output to survive. But when assessed against what the policy was supposed to do – push up nickel prices – it has worked. Prices jumped to $20,000 a ton in May, the highest since 2024.
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Chinese industry groups representing companies that have invested billions to mine and refine the country’s nickel were furious, warning Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto that the cuts put $50 billion worth of investment at risk. But much of that Chinese capital is sunk into smelters and processing plants built specifically to run on Indonesian ore, and cannot simply be moved elsewhere. That gives Jakarta more room to hold its ground than the warning suggests.
Stronger environmental enforcement
Since the start of the year, Indonesia’s forestry task force has seized more than four million hectares of land from mines and plantations operating illegally in protected forests, collecting over two trillion rupiah ($113 million) in fines.
This included 148 hectares seized from Weda Bay for lacking a forestry permit. The share of nickel produced from illegal small-scale mining also fell from about a quarter in 2022 to roughly 10% by 2024.
The crackdown responds to serious environmental damages in the nickel industry. On Obi Island, a waste pond collapsed after heavy rain in June 2025, flooding three villages and killing a resident. Internal company tests found chromium-6 – a carcinogen – in the water, in quantities far above the legal limit. The footprint of another mine near Raja Ampat, which is home to some of the world’s richest coral reefs, grew 60-fold in just eight years.
The market is responding to early cleanup efforts. Low-carbon nickel now sells for a real premium, roughly $18,800 to $19,300 a ton compared with $17,900 to $18,300 otherwise, as carmakers seek to source cleaner materials to comply with the European Union’s new emissions rules for imports.
In turn, this is incentivising the industry to do more to green its operations. Vale Indonesia’s smelter in South Sulawesi now runs almost entirely on hydropower, for example.
None of this addresses coal use, however. Major Indonesian nickel producers still emitted an estimated 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. Indonesia may be cracking down on illegal mining and rewarding cleaner producers but it is still running its mines on the dirtiest fuel available.
Unequal benefits
For Indonesia to truly benefit from producing cleaner and high-value nickel, it needs to reap the economic benefits too. Although the industry has boosted the country’s economic growth, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Konawe in Southeast Sulawesi is home to a major smelting complex. Growth in the district jumped from 6% to 22% between 2015 and 2023, driven almost entirely by the nickel industry, according to a study by the Lowy Institute study. At the same time, poverty levels increased slightly and unemployment remained unchanged.
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In Halmahera, another epicentre of the nickel industry, spending by the poorest fifth grew just 5% between 2019 and 2022, compared with 28% for the wealthiest fifth, according to a separate study.
Part of the reason for this inequality is the system for transferring mining royalties to district authorities where the mines are located. In theory, they are entitled to the largest share. But in practice, payments are delayed, companies routinely dispute what they owe and royalties are pooled and distributed across a larger area.
The Natural Resource Governance Institute has found that decentralisation handed local governments power to approve new mines faster than they could build their capacity to manage them. Higher output raises national income on paper, but local governments remain constrained by fiscal rules and infrastructure costs that scale with mining.
None of this makes the 2026 quota cuts a mistake. Indonesia has every right to defend its pricing power over a resource it controls. But limiting extraction isn’t going to fix underlying issues around environmental enforcement and revenue-sharing. That requires rules that are consistently enforced, royalties that reach communities living by the mines, and a plan to wean smelters off coal.
The post Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry
Climate Change
Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans
SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.
The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.
An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.
Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.
“The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.
“The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”
Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.
“The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.
“The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”
After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.
Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.
“Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465
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