Focali researcher Martin Persson was selected for this scholarship for his research on: “Internationally traded agricultural commodities - a threat to the forests, climate and biodiversity?” Read more about the scholarship and award ceremony in the press release from the Royal castle. (In Swedish)

Martin Persson and his colleagues Sabine Henders and Thomas Kastner have recently published the working paper “Trading Forests: Quantifying the Contribution of Global Commodity Markets to Emissions from Tropical Deforestation” with the Center for Global Development. The article is an analysis of how and where global supply-chains link consumers of agricultural and forest commodities over the world to the destruction of forests in tropical countries. 

“From having been caused mainly by smallholders and production for local markets, an increasing share of deforestation today is driven by large-scale agricultural production for international markets. More than a third of global deforestation can be tied to rising production of beef, soy, palm oil and wood products,” says Martin Persson.

He concludes "Today both public and private consumers, be it individuals or corporations, have the possibility to contribute to the protection of tropical forests by holding suppliers accountable for the environmental impacts of their production".

Read more about Persson's research on how to trace internationally traded commodities to the farm level.