The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) are key instruments of the European Union’s green trade policy. This study employs the GTAP-E (Global Trade Analysis Project–Energy) model to assess their impacts on wood exports from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The results indicate that CBAM has a relatively moderate effect, operating mainly through indirect cost transmission channels. In contrast, EUDR significantly constrains exports, output, and welfare by increasing compliance costs and tightening market access requirements. Under the combined scenario, the two policies generate an amplification effect, further intensifying trade contraction. Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam are the most adversely affected, while countries such as Singapore exhibit a certain degree of resilience. Overall, green trade policies may exacerbate existing development imbalances. In response, it is recommended that the EU strengthen support for technology transfer and capacity building, while ASEAN countries should enhance forest governance and promote export market diversification.
While most research tracks forest area changes, a critical gap exists in understanding the qualitative pathways behind them and their ecological consequences. Current approaches, including Forest Transition Theory, often treat diverse forests and monoculture plantations as equivalent, masking the damaging ‘great forest swap.’ This study addresses this by analysing global data (1990–2025) to classify transition pathways and their impacts. It reveals that Intensive Degradation is the most common pathway (32% of countries), and that Active Substitution, where natural forests are replaced by plantations, is an ecologically damaging trend. The research’s novelty lies in linking pathway types to carbon and institutional drivers, showing stark differences in carbon storage and proving that strong governance and secure land tenure more than triple the odds of a restorative pathway. This evidence establishes that forest outcomes are political. Consequently, international climate and biodiversity policies should urgently shift from area-based to quality-based accounting and prioritize strengthening institutions in order to protect vital forest ecosystems.
Climate-smart forestry practices in Cameroon are promoted as integrated solutions for climate mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and livelihood improvement, yet their implementation remains uneven across forest management systems. This review synthesizes evidence on key practices (reduced impact logging, forest certification, reforestation, and agroforestry), and identifies interconnected economic, social and environmental barriers limiting their adoption. Major constraints include high upfront costs, delayed financial returns, weak market incentives, limited access to climate finance, land and tree tenure insecurity, low stakeholder awareness, weak participation and environmental challenges such as forest degradation and climate variability. These barriers affect both adopters and non-adopters, undermining effectiveness and scalability. The study concludes that these challenges are structural rather than technical and argues for integrated approaches that align economic incentives, tenure security, inclusive governance, climate finance and landscape-level planning to enhance climate-smart forestry outcomes in Cameroon.
The growing demand for palm oil has driven oil palm plantation expansion and the associated environmental, economic and social impacts at the landscape level in the tropics. This research describes how a high-risk forested landscape in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, reacts to the deforestation-free palm oil trade policies implemented by the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries using value chain and system dynamics methods. Our modelling shows that global green initiatives and palm oil certification have a detrimental relationship with local economic reduction but a beneficial relationship with environmental outcomes achieving zero deforestation. Although green deals impose costs, compensation methods such as carbon trading, ecological fiscal transfers, and payments for environmental services, exist. Premium prices for palm oil are critical to offset losses. These insights inform Indonesian deforestation reduction efforts and serve as benchmarks for agricultural commodities in differing contexts.
