2025/05/30 by Jerico Fiestas-Flores, Minoru Higa, Javier G. Montoya-Zumaeta · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Environmental Science · #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Global trade, sustainability, and social impact #Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
paper · doi:10.1016/j.tfp.2025.100888
openalex publication_date 2025/05/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
We leverage spatial variation in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic across Peru to examine its impacts on deforestation. We find that COVID-19 explains one-third of the increase in deforestation in 2020. We estimate that a 10 % increase in COVID-19 cases increases deforestation by 1.5 %. This impact is exacerbated in districts with coca production or illegal mining. Pandemic-driven deforestation increased CO 2 emissions by over 8 million tons, representing a social cost five times the national budget for forest management. These findings underscore the vulnerability of environmental monitoring and enforcement to external shocks in developing countries.