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Reply to: Overestimating outsourced biodiversity loss may misguide policy

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replying to: D. A. Martin et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10370-5 (2026).

In the accompanying Comment, Martin et al.1 raise concerns that the published source that we used to map the spatial footprint of consumption-driven deforestation2 includes areas of shifting cultivation for crops that are destined for local consumption, potentially inflating estimates of the biodiversity impacts of export agriculture. They draw on the example of vanilla cultivation in Madagascar to illustrate their concern. Although global analyses such as ours inevitably involve trade-offs, the methods that we applied do not substantially overattribute shifting cultivation to export agriculture, for reasons described in the published data source2 and in our Article3, and as we explain in additional detail below. Several of the concerns raised by Martin et al.1 further reflect differences in interpretation of how our results should be understood to apply at subnational scales.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    R. Alex Wiebe & David S. Wilcove

  2. High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    David S. Wilcove

  3. Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    David S. Wilcove

Authors

  1. R. Alex Wiebe
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  2. David S. Wilcove
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R.A.W. and D.S.W. wrote and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to
R. Alex Wiebe.

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Wiebe, R.A., Wilcove, D.S. Reply to: Overestimating outsourced biodiversity loss may misguide policy.
Nature 652, E14–E15 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10371-4

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