Palm Oil Development and Biodiversity Conservation Oil Development and... · Oil palm monocultures Indonesia is now the world’s largest producer of palm oil, and together with Malaysia,

Palm Oil Development

and Biodiversity

Conservation

Ashley Leiman OBE

Director/Trustee, Orangutan Foundation

Oil palm monocultures

Indonesia is now the world’s largest producer of palm oil, and together with

Malaysia, they produce over 80% of the world’s palm oil.

This has brought major economic benefits to both countries. For example,

according to CIFOR, in 2008, production of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) in Indonesia

generated revenues of $ 12.4 billion dollars from foreign exchange exports and

$ 1 billion dollars from export taxes…

…whilst employment generated directly by the palm oil industry in Indonesia in

2013 was estimated to be 3.2 million people.

Forest conversion to oil palm in

Tripa swamp

Despite these major economic benefits, NGO’s have questioned the

environmental and health costs involved. Of the 8 million hectares that are

currently under oil palm in Indonesia, CIFOR estimated that at least half has

been developed directly by deforestation.

The Indonesian Government hopes to expand the area under oil palm by an additional

4 million hectares so that the current production of CPO can be doubled to 40 million

tons annually by 2020.

This raises the question: where will the additional 4 million hectares come from ?

Primary forest habitats

And will it entail the destruction of more primary forest ?

And if more primary forest is converted to oil palm, what will be the loss in

biodiversity ?

Montage of forest species

Let us look first at the biodiversity of primary forests compared to oil palm

plantations, and then look at what options are available as a source of land to

develop new areas for oil palm.

Oil palm agriculture and tropical biodiversity Koh & Wilcove (2008)

From data by Koh & Wilcove

(2008) ; the number of species of

birds and butterflies that were

recorded in four locations: primary

forest on the left; then 30-year old

secondary forest; then rubber

plantations; and on the far right oil

palm plantations. The histograms

in dark blue represent the number

of species of forest birds present;

whilst those in red represent the

number of forest butterfly species.

This shows that if primary forest is

converted to oil palm, there is a

77% loss in forest birds, and an

83% loss in forest butterflies. It

also shows that the 30-year old

selectively-logged forest had

largely recovered, to the extent

that it contained 84% of the forest

birds found in the primary forest.

Montage of forest species

So, secondary forests have the potential to recover all of the original biodiversity

of their former primary condition.

A review of studies covering a wider range of species by Fitzherbert and

Danielsen have supported these results. They found an average of just 15 -

23% of forest species in oil palm.

So what options are available as a source of land to develop new oil palm plantations

that do not destroy existing forest?

From the biodiversity perspective therefore, we can conclude that if new oil palm

developments were to involve clear-felling existing primary or secondary forests to

convert the land ready for planting with oil palm, this would result in devastation for

the existing biodiversity, with an 80-85% loss of forest species.

There is mounting evidence to show that

there is already sufficient degraded ‘low-

carbon’ lands that are suitable for oil palm,

instead of converting existing forests.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has

recently launched an initiative to map

degraded lands in Indonesia. They are

mapping all the degraded land that is

suitable from an agricultural perspective to

become oil palm, but has low carbon stocks

and little biodiversity. This usually means

the natural forest cover was cleared years

ago and did not recover; and it includes

alang-alang grasslands.

So far, WRI has identified more than 14 million

hectares of such degraded lands in Kalimantan that

may be suitable for oil palm production. Not all of this

would eventually become productive, however, as some

local communities may have alternative proposals.

Given that the total likely amount of expansion of the oil

palm estate by 2020 has been estimated as between 4-

7 million hectares, this implies that all of this expansion

could be sourced from currently existing degraded

lands, without further clearance of forests or draining

more carbon-rich peatlands.

Whilst the greatest proportion of land needed for new

oil palm development could come from such degraded

lands, is it possible to be more efficient with the land

already within the existing concessions ?

Red tide of Oil Palm in Central

Kalimantan According to

CIFOR, by the end

of 2011, the total

area under oil

palm in Indonesia

amounted to some

7.8 million

hectares, of which

6.1 million

hectares were in

active production.

So this implies

that about 22% of

the concession

areas were

unproductive. But

is any of this

unproductive land

existing forest ?

Overview maps of forest cover and orang-utan data points in combination with the

orang-utan distribution and land use types.

Wich SA, Gaveau D, Abram N, Ancrenaz M, et al. (2012) PLoS ONE 7(11)

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0049142

The latest analysis of satellite

imagery of orangutan habitat in

Borneo by Wich et al in 2012 show

that 78% of the total orangutan

distribution was found in forests

outside protected areas, of which

some 54% was found in industrial

concessions: comprising 35% in

logging concessions and timber

plantations, and 19% in oil palm.

There is a strong possibility therefore,

that most of the unproductive lands in

oil palm concessions in Kalimantan

are comprised of forest of high

biodiversity value, of which, large

amounts may also be claimed by

local communities as customary

forest, known locally as Hutan Adat.

Is there evidence from ground

surveys that plantation concessions

may contain good forest ?

In theory an area of

State Forest Land

that is released by

the Ministry of

Forestry for

conversion to oil

palm should not

normally contain any

forest, but the

situation in practise

is clearly different.

Many plantation

companies report

that they do have

significant areas of

forests within the

boundaries of their

concession.

Taken together, these small islands of high biodiversity value provide an important

compliment to the State’s total conservation land. This slide shows individual

orangutans identified from the forest inside a plantation in East Kalimantan.

There is a growing conflict developing

between orangutans and humans in and

around oil palm. This is especially so in

Kalimantan. Orangutans that have had their

forest home destroyed are often found in

remnant forest patches nearby, from where

they enter cultivated areas and are labelled as

pests. There have been some well-

documented cases recently of workers from

plantations companies or local communities

killing orangutans.

In the last two months there have been media reports of systematic killings of

orangutans inside a concession near Tanjung Puting National Park that is

currently being investigated by the Government.

aan

One of the orangutans that was rescued by the

Orangutan Foundation in October 2012, Aan, had over

100 air gun pellets in her body. She was shot in the eyes

and ears, and is blind and partially deaf, but has survived

against all the odds and will need long-term care.

With increasing publicity about the work of orangutan rehabilitation centres, local communities and concession workers that see these problem orangutans as crop-raiders, are now demanding they be caught and sent to rehabilitation centres. As a result of this, since March 2011, the Orangutan Foundation has been requested by the Government’s conservation authority BKSDA to rescue 28 orangutans from plantations and surrounding forest patches. Of these, about 60% were found in community forest lands and 40% in plantations. This raises three problems…

First, given that more than 75% of the population of orangutans in the wild occurs outside of conservation areas, this practise has the potential to remove 75% of the population from the wild. Second, given the massive scale of conversion of natural forests in Kalimantan to oil palm or other land-use development, there are not enough suitable forests that can take such an exodus of captured orangutans. And third, the three main orangutan rehabilitation centres operating in Kalimantan are already at full capacity. Consequently, there is an urgent need to stem the scale of the removal of orangutans from the wild, so that it is limited to only urgent cases of animals in imminent danger of being killed, reinforcing the current policy guideline that translocations should be the last resort. What can we do about it ?

There are three main solutions:

First: we need to change the perception of public and private sector

stakeholders that orangutans they encounter outside conservation forests

should be captured and sent to rehabilitation centres or relocated elsewhere;

Second: we need to persuade plantation companies to set aside high

biodiversity forests within their concessions as locally protected conservation

areas. This is allowed under current Government regulations, and hence

compliant with ISPO criteria for certification.

Third: we need to raise awareness that there are alternative practical

solutions, especially on how to deal with crop-raiding cases. Guidelines on this

have been produced by a team from BOS-Indonesia, WWF-Indonesia and

UNAS in 2007.

The Orangutan Foundation

held a multi-stakeholder

workshop in Central

Kalimantan in 2013 funded by

the Rufford Foundation, to

mitigate conflicts between

orangutans and humans in and

around oil palm. Over 21 oil

palm companies from Central

Kalimantan participated, in

addition to government

agencies, local communities

and NGO’s. An important

resolution was passed in which

the participants committed to

protect the orangutans within

their concession and to

exchange best practice

experiences on mitigating

conflicts with orangutans.

To do this, the oil palm companies

were urged to ensure they have a

conservation plan to properly

manage the biodiversity found in

the remaining forests within their

concession. This plan should be in

accordance with the stipulations in

the original environmental impact

assessment (AMDAL) that should

have been conducted before the

Permit for Plantation was issued.

A benefit from doing this is to

maintain the biodiversity of riverine

forests and networks of small

streams that help irrigate the

plantation. Thus, taking a more

holistic view can lead to a win-win

solution for both the palm oil

industry and biodiversity

conservation.

…Great hope had also been

invested in the RSPO as a

means of producing palm oil

without destruction of

rainforests. Regrettably, the

palm oil industry has not yet

stepped up to the mark to

achieve a majority of

certified CPO, as currently

only 15% of the CPO market

comes from certified

sources. In addition, there is

growing concern that the

RSPO’s certification process

is not as rigorous as it

should be.

This has prompted the

establishment of a new

group called the Palm Oil

Innovation Group; whilst

Greenpeace has urged

progressive companies to go

beyond the standards set by

RSPO in their practices. It

would be commendable,

therefore, if the ISPO criteria

included a ban on converting

forests and had a stringent

certification process.

In conclusion, we hope the palm oil industry would

consider using existing degraded low-carbon lands in

Kalimantan, which have been identified as suitable for oil

palm plantation, as this would provide an alternative land

source for the industry in line with the Indonesian

Government’s CPO target for 2020.

We believe this can this be achieved without further

destruction of these magnificent rainforests and the

spectacular biodiversity they contain.