Robusta's Reckoning<br>| Coffee Watch

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Robusta's Reckoning

VIETNAM’S COFFEE BOOM RUNNING OUT OF FOREST, WATER, AND TIME

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June 16, 2026

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br>New Report Reveals Massive Deforestation for Coffee in Vietnam; and Mounting Environmental Risks<br>Satellite mapping shows decades of coffee expansion drove large-scale forest loss in Vietnam<br>June 17, 2026 — Coffee Watch today released Vietnam’s Robusta Reckoning, a major new investigation revealing the deforestation and other risks tied to Vietnam’s booming coffee sector. The report draws on extensive new satellite mapping data , scientific studies and government records to show decades of intensive farming, climate stress, and unchecked deforestation pushing Vietnam’s coffee heartlands to a breaking point .

“Vietnam is the backbone of the world’s affordable coffee supply,” said Etelle Higonnet , founder of Coffee Watch. “If this system collapses, the shockwaves will be felt in every supermarket and every café. The industry has ignored the warning signs for too long.”<br>The Epicenter of Destruction<br>Vietnam produces 1 in 5 cups consumed worldwide, accounting for about 20% of global supply and nearly 40% of robusta exports, yet the foundations of this production model are rapidly eroding because of extensive historical deforestation and pesticide-soaked monoculture.<br>Vietnam has experienced one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. The Central Highlands—home to the country’s robusta belt—has been an epicenter of this destruction. The report finds that approximately 207,428 hectares of tropical forest were cleared between 1990 and 2024 in areas now used for coffee production. In just one generation, coffee has been the driving force behind the loss of 1/3 of the forests in the Central Highlands, where 95% of Vietnamese coffee grows .<br>Undisturbed forest in the Central Highlands declined from approximately 2.49 million hectares in 1990 to 1.61 million hectares by 2024. Forest cover fell from 42.8% of the regional land area in 1990 to just 19.0% by 2020, before stabilizing at low levels in the early 2020s.

While the rate of annual loss has diminished in recent years, this report’s satellite mapping reveals it is in large part because there is so little remaining forest left to kill.<br>Rapid Expansion<br>Coffee cultivation expanded rapidly in Vietnam beginning in the late 20th century. The country’s share of global coffee supply grew from less than 1% in the early 1980s to about one-fifth by 2020. The accompanying coffee deforestation has caused a biodiversity and carbon cataclysm.

In 1943 nearly 80% of the Central Highlands region remained under forest cover. As recently as the 1990s, the region held a large share of Vietnam’s remaining high-biomass, high-biodiversity forests. Coffee expanded rapidly through the 1990s and 2000s, as Vietnam’s share of global supply rose from less than 1% in the early 1980s to one fifth by 2020.<br>Vietnam became the world’s 2nd largest coffee producer, behind only Brazil. Vietnamese coffee area increased from 50,000 hectares in the mid-1980s to more than 700,000 hectares today, transforming the basaltic plateaus of Đắk Lắk, Gia Lai, Lâm Đồng, Đắk Nông, and Kon Tum into the engine room of the global robusta trade. This transformation did not occur on empty land. It usually took place on forests.<br>The report finds that deforestation in Vietnam’s coffee belt was driven by policy incentives, development financing and industry expansion, with key responsibility lying with the government of Vietnam, but also the World Bank and coffee industry .<br>The report also reveals that much hope about afforestation that Vietnamese authorities peddled is likely based on a double lie : national tree cover gains often reflect plantation expansion and definitional changes, including the reduction of the canopy threshold for forest classification in 2008, which...