The growing extraction of rainforest resources is pushing the Amazon and similar biomes towards breaking point, a report has shown. Fresh demands for critical minerals, biofuels and pulp – used in fast fashion, processed food and packaging – are compounding existing pressures from cattle ranching, monocrops, oil and logging, the analysis finds. Mining, in particular, has a far greater environmental footprint than previously thought owing to secondary impacts, such as water pollution and the construction of roads, settlements and other infrastructure development. Between 10% and one-third of the world’s forests are already affected and this proportion is expected to increase. The authors say this highlights an urgent need to replace and reduce the use of products from forest regions, rather than simply adding new forms of consumption, as is currently the case. The report tracks the commodity trends that are threatening forests in the Amazon, the Congo basin and south-east Asia, and weakening their capacity to regulate temperature, store carbon, recycle water and provide a home for nature. Cattle ranching, agriculture and gold mining remain by far the biggest threats, finds the study, which was produced by the Dutch research organisation Profundo and commissioned by Rainforest Foundation Norway. All three are forecast to continue expanding. While the extractive threats of energy, mining and e-commerce are usually examined in isolation, the authors say they need to be understood together as a compounding assault on the world’s forests. “It creates a pressure that the rainforests cannot withstand,” said Ingrid Turgen of the Rainforest Foundation Norway. “Our main message is that this compilation – one on top of the other – is affecting all three rainforest basins (Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia) and if governments don’t do something about it then places like the Amazon face a pretty bleak scenario.”