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Rubber planting and deforestation

Nature volume 644, pages E20–E22 (2025)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 13 August 2025

The Original Article was published on 18 October 2023

arising from: Y. Wang et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06642-z (2023).

Wang et al.1 used satellite observations and phenological signatures to map and estimate the extent of planted rubber (Hevea brasiliensis Müll.Arg.), and associated deforestation, for eight Southeast Asian countries. Their assessment implies that planted rubber may have caused over 4 Mha of deforestation since 1993—a value greater than assumed in setting deforestation policies. Unfortunately, their estimates rely on incorrect methods. Moreover, their definition of ‘deforestation’ is misleading because it includes all tree cover loss, not just natural forests. They include losses from young regrowth, established rubber gardens and other plantations. Our assessment indicates that, since 2001, the actual extent of deforestation associated with planted rubber is approximately one-quarter that reported by Wang et al.1.

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Fig. 1: Sample validation for the two studies showing locations and outcomes.

Data availability

Our validation dataset can be downloaded from Zenodo10 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10646349). The rubber layers presented by Wang et al.1 are available at Zenodo11 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8425153). The primary humid forest map produced by Turubanova et al.7 is available online (https://glad.umd.edu/dataset/primary-forest-humid-tropics).

References

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  10. Sheil, D., Descals, A., Meijaard, E. & Gaveau, D. Validation dataset for ‘Rubber planting and deforestation’. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10646349 (2025).

  11. Wang, Y. et. al. High-resolution maps of rubber and rubber-related deforestation for Southeast Asia. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8425153 (2023).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Douglas Sheil

  2. Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia

    Douglas Sheil

  3. Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain

    Adrià Descals

  4. Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Erik Meijaard

  5. The TreeMap, Martel, France

    David Gaveau

  6. Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development, Sunway University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    David Gaveau

Authors
  1. Douglas Sheil
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  2. Adrià Descals
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  3. Erik Meijaard
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  4. David Gaveau
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Contributions

D.S. led the writing and coordinated inputs. A.D. performed the sampling, validation and related analyses. D.S., A.D., E.M. and D.G. contributed ideas, revised and agreed the final text.

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Correspondence to Douglas Sheil.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Sheil, D., Descals, A., Meijaard, E. et al. Rubber planting and deforestation. Nature 644, E20–E22 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08848-9

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