The impacts and opportunities of oil palm in Southeast Asia: What do we know and what do we need to know?

By Sheil D., Casson A., M. E, V. M., G. J., S. J, W. K., K. M.. 2009

388 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The ongoing expansion of oil palm plantations in the humid tropics, especially in Southeast Asia, is generating considerable concern and debate. Amid industry and environmental campaigners' claims, it can be hard to perceive reality. Is oil palm a valuable route to sustainable development or a costly road to environmental ruin? Inevitably, any answer depends on many choices. But do decision makers have the information they require to avoid pitfalls and make the best decisions? This review examines what we know and what we don't know about oil palm developments. Our sources include academic publications and ‘grey' literature, along with expert consultations. Some facts are indisputable: among these are that oil palm is highly productive and commercially profitable at large scales, and that palm oil demand is rising. Implementing oil palm developments involves many tradeoffs. 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. We remain uncertain of the full implications of current choices. How can local, regional and international benefits be increased while costs are minimised? While much important information is available, it is often open to question or hard to generalise. We conclude this review with a list of pressing questions requiring further investigation. Credible, unbiased research on these issues will move the discussion and practice forward.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/70ad4c7923ed5024e781d81c7e7f77e2cded6f28

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Citations in the corpus

Why do Farmers Prefer Oil Palm? Lessons Learnt from Bungo District, Indonesia (2010, background): “Oil palm attracts farmers due to its high financial returns (Belcher et al. 2004; Sandker et al. 2007; Sheil et al. 2009).”
Does intensification slow crop land expansion or encourage deforestation (2014, background): “…to oil palm in Indonesia over the period, 1991–2007, of about 5.5 Mha accounts for only a small fraction of forest loss of 30 Mha – much forest land has been allocated to oil palm and other plantation crops in which the timber was extracted and then no oil palm was planted (Sheil et al., 2009).”
Palm oil-based biofuels and sustainability in southeast Asia: A review of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand (2014, background): “As illustrated by major international research endeavors [10] undertaken over the last decade, a rich discussion has propagated amongst academics and experts concerning the pollution-mitigating and profit-maximizing impacts of using oil palm byproducts such as the shells of empty palm kernel husks, ”
Oil Palm Adoption, Household Welfare, and Nutrition Among Smallholder Farmers in Indonesia (2017, background): “On the other hand, a rising focus on a non-food cash crop with relatively large capital requirements could make farm households more vulnerable and increase income inequality (Cramb & Curry, 2012; McCarthy, 2010; Rist et al., 2010; Sheil et al., 2009).”
Oil palm expansion among smallholder farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia (2016, background): “Major social threats include an increasing vulnerability and economic marginalization of the rural population, as well as conflicts over land use and land ownership between private sector companies and local communities (McCarthy, 2010; Rist et al., 2010; Sheil et al., 2009).”
Sustainable palm oil as a public responsibility? On the governance capacity of Indonesian Standard for Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) (2018, background): “2010), it is also associated with sustainability problems such as deforestation (Koh and Wilcove 2009; Sheil et al. 2009), the emission of greenhouse gasses (see Fargione et al.”
The palm oil global value chain: Implications for economic growth and socialand environmental sustainability (2017, background): “…its development has often come at the expense of basic human rights and of biodiverse, carbon-rich tropical forests, as local communities have been evicted from their lands and precious primary forest and peatland ecosystems have been destroyed by fire (see Sheil et al. 2009; Sayer et al. 2012).”