CEO Note: Results from a milestone in deforestation monitoring

Mighty Earth recently published its 50th Rapid Response palm oil report! This milestone marks eight successful years of driving dramatic reductions in deforestation in Southeast Asia through monitoring palm oil and other commodities in the region – and translating that data into real action on the ground.

It has also created an effective model which we have since expanded to South America and Africa, where it is driving similar results.

In 2017, when Mighty Earth launched our Rapid Response program, we faced a challenge. By that time, Mighty Earth and several allies had secured commitments from palm oil and and paper companies to protect forests, peatland and Indigenous land. However, we were still finding suppliers engaged in substantial deforestation managing to sell their products – and too often getting away with it. We needed transparent monitoring backed by stronger implementation from the ag companies. To tackle the challenge, we convened the major agribusinesses and won commitments to accelerate implementation of their policies so that they would act within 48 hours of receiving a deforestation alert.

Then, we built a team of remote sensing, land ownership, and supply chain experts – along with a team of partners from MapHubs, AidEnvironment, Planet, and Global Forest Watch – to identify new deforestation or peatland development across more than 3,000 oil palm concessions, covering approximately 21 million hectares of land. And, of course, we worked hard to raise the money from our generous supporters to do it – work that hasn’t ceased!

Now, between every month and every quarter, we file alerts with dozens of the largest commodity agriculture companies. And we issue rankings of their performance, setting off a competition among the traders to move quickly to prove their supply chains are deforestation-free. I’ll never forget when the Chief Sustainability Officer of one of the largest palm oil companies told me how we ranked his company “yellow” (for caution) and the Board of Directors made it a mission for the whole company to improve and get to green – which they did.

All in all, it’s worked…in spades. The traders generally act quickly by either suspending suppliers linked to deforestation or securing No Deforestation policies and investments in restoration. In rare instances where traders don’t act, we’re able to bring pressure by alerting government, customers, and financiers around the world so that they do.

By catching deforestation at the 10-hectare level, we are able to work with companies to stop it before it becomes 10,000 hectares.

We’re proud of some big results: As a result of the Rapid Response program, more than 60 palm oil suppliers have adopted forest and human rights policies, and more than 275 bad actors have been suspended from supply chains.

Most importantly, the program has helped create an expectation throughout the industries we monitor that deforestation or land-grabbing will lead to an almost instant loss of access to markets and capital markets.

All in all, Rapid Response has been a major contributor to the 90% decline in commodity deforestation in Southeast Asia and parts of the Congo Basin – a gigaton-scale climate victory, and one that means there are millions of acres more forests standing today.

Read More: An Interview with Rapid Response Project’s Phil Aikman >>

I am so excited by what Rapid Response has achieved already and its continued expansion. Our reports from Latin America and Africa are driving major results, including almost 1,000 supply chain suspensions. They’ve revealed occasionally shocking wrongdoing, including exposing chemical defoliation and other abuses in the cattle and animal feed supply chains driving so much destruction in the region, and helped spur deeper change by the companies.

I am hopeful that the continued growth of Rapid Response – covering new geographies and commodities – will bring the same reduction in deforestation that we saw in Southeast Asia across the globe.

—

© 2025. The text of this article is openly licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-ND 4.0); you are free to copy and redistribute or republish the article in its entirety with attribution and credit.