Overlooked deforestation from global mining activities in the 21st century

Mining is a major driver of deforestation. However, quantitatively estimating its full impact on natural forests and the associated carbon emissions is challenging due to incomplete global data on mining activities. Here, we compiled a comprehensive inventory of global mining activities, including 236,028 mining areas with an overall accuracy of 87.37% to analyze deforestation within mining areas and the associated forest carbon emissions from 2001 to 2023. Our results reveal that deforestation directly caused by mining activities is two to three times higher than previously estimated from widely used mining datasets, accounting for 19,765 km2 of deforestation and 0.75 Pg CO2 of carbon emission in the 21st century. Notably, 50.29% of this deforestation is linked to undocumented mining activities. This study highlights the significant deforestation directly caused by mining activities on a global scale, and particularly underscoring the environmental impact of informal mining.