Growing international demand for agricultural commodities such as palm oil, beef, soy and wood is driving the illegal destruction of tropical forests. 71% of all tropical deforestation between 2000 and 2012 was caused by commercial agriculture, according to a new report published today by the Washington-based NGO Forest Trends. Almost half (49%) of this deforestation is the result of illegal clearing, driven by overseas demand for agricultural commodities. The study found that this global market for beef, leather, soy, palm oil, and wood products, including paper is worth an estimated US$61 billion per year. The largest buyers of these products are the EU, China, India, Russia, and the US. This overseas demand resulted in the illegal clearing of more than 200,000 square kilometres of tropical forest between 2000 and 2012, an average of five football fields every minute. “We’ve known that the production of agricultural commodities is a principal driving force behind deforestation, but this is the first report to show the outsize role that illegal activities play in the production of hundreds of food and household products consumed worldwide,” said Michael Jenkins, the president and CEO of Forest Trends. According to the study, this illegal conversion of tropical forest for large-scale commercial agriculture during 2000-2012 released an estimated 1.47 gigatonnes of carbon each year - equivalent to 25% of the EU’s annual fossil fuel-based emissions. The report suggests that at least 90% of the deforestation in Brazil from 2000 to 2012 was illegal because the legal obligation to conserve a percentage of natural forests in large-scale cattle and soy plantations was ignored. More sad news came from Brazil on Wednesday: Government figures showed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 29% over the last year as agriculture expanded in the states of Para and Mato Grosso. Around 5,891 square kilometres of forest were cleared, an area half the size of Puerto Rico.