Issues around palm oil development prove complex, controversial
mongabay.comAugust 12, 2009
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The review, titled "The impacts and opportunities of oil palm in Southeast Asia: What do we know and what do we need to know?", notes that while oil palm is a highly productive and profitable crop, there are serious concerns about its environmental and social impact when established on disputed land or in place of tropical forests and peatlands.
"Implementing oil palm developments involves many tradeoffs," write the authors. "Oil palm's considerable profitability offers wealth and development where wealth and development are needed—but also threatens traditional livelihoods. It offers a route out of poverty, while also making people vulnerable to exploitation, misinformation and market instabilities. It threatens rich biological diversity—while also offering the finance needed to protect forest. It offers a renewable source of fuel, but also threatens to increase global carbon emissions."
 Oil palm seed. Photo by Rhett A. Butler |
But if not oil palm, then what?
Although oil palm expansion has been linked to environmental problems, its high yield means palm oil can help meet future demand for vegetable oil at a lower land cost than other crops, including soy, rapeseed/canola, and sunflowers. But as the CIFOR report notes, much of the clearing done ostensibly for oil palm establishment isn't actually planted with oil palm.
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Such details, which reflect the complexities of oil palm agriculture, have made the report itself controversial. It was held up for months due to political concerns. Nevertheless the report is now available online at www.cifor.cgiar.org/Publications/Detail?pid=2792.
The report is authored by Douglas Sheil of CIFOR; Anne Casson of Sekala; Erik Meijaard of The Nature Conservancy; Meine van Noordwijk of the World Agroforestry Centre; Joanne Gaskell of Stanford University; Jacqui Sunderland-Groves of CIFOR; Karah Wertz of CIFOR; and Markku Kanninen of CIFOR.
Sheil, D., Casson, A., Meijaard, E., van Nordwijk, M. Gaskell, J., Sunderland-Groves, J., Wertz, K. and Kanninen, M. 2009. The impacts and opportunities of oil palm in Southeast Asia: What do we know and what do we need to know? Occasional paper no. 51. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.
