The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated responses by governments have halted economic activity abruptly across the world. The environment has benefited with reductions in pollution in urban areas, but what has happened in rural areas to deforestation has not been studied yet. A priori the effect is unclear: deforestation might decrease with the restrictions on economic activity. But it might have increased given the reductions in monitoring. I combine bi-weekly data from 70 countries covering the entire world’s tropical forest with the dates each country started lockdown restrictions. Using difference-in-differences I find that, although deforestation is higher in 2020 compared to 2019, it is not driven by the lockdowns but rather by higher deforestation that precedes them. There is heterogeneity by the level of government effectiveness of the country: countries with effective governance experience a reduction in deforestation, probably because they can enforce the lockdown restrictions
