Since wood is often produced in one country and consumed in another, the ecological impacts of harvesting can be disconnected from consumption. Without scalable, science-based approaches linking the biodiversity and carbon consequences of global harvests to specific management practices and wood flows, governments, companies, and the environmental sector risk severely underestimating wood production impacts, overlooking the responsibilities of often-distant consumers, and promoting policies that shift harvest burdens to biologically rich, carbon-dense but frequently poorer regions.

Our work in this space is seeking to better understand the environmental impacts embedded within international timber trade. To do so, we are combining (i) species distribution models (SDMs) that measure how species respond to forest degradation (ii) timber trade flow data and (iii) mechanistic carbon models – all within a unified framework that allows us to begin to understand the harvesting footprint of international consumers of wood.

Our goal is to help shed light on a complex issue: the forest degradation ‘outsourced’ beyond a country’s own borders. This is critical under emerging trade agendas, like the EUDR. But it’s also key given the globalisation of the global timber system, which is increasingly characterised by complex networks of traded goods.