Tropical peatland carbon losses from oil palm plantations may be underestimated

A press release from the University of Minnesota: Draining tropical peatlands for oil palm plantations may result in nearly twice as much carbon loss as official estimates, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment and the Union of Concerned Scientists in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Peatlands — waterlogged, organic soils — have developed over thou
sands of years as carbon storage systems. In Southeast Asia, peat swamp forests cover about 250,000 square kilometers, a land area about the size of Michigan. In the past 15 years, peatland forests have been rapidly drained and cleared to make way for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. Draining exposes the upper peat layer to oxygen, raising decomposition rates and soil carbon losses. Most of that carbon is emitted to the atmosphere, speeding up climate change.

Kimberly M. Carlson, a postdoctoral research scholar with IonE’s Global Landscapes Initiative, and UCS researchers Lael K. Goodman and Calen C. May-Tobin designed their research to support site-specific greenhouse gas emissions assessments in tropical plantations. “We wanted to know whether water table depth could be used as a proxy for soil carbon loss in peatland plantations,” Carlson explained.

...The study, a comprehensive analysis of scientific literature on tropical plantation peatland carbon balance, found a correlation between long-term water table depth (the distance from the soil surface to the water surface) and soil carbon loss rate. This finding suggests that peat water table monitoring could help companies more accurately measure their greenhouse gas emissions.

The researchers compared two measurements of carbon loss: subsidence and mass balance. To find the subsidence rate, scientists measure how much the land has sunk over time and how much carbon is stored in the soil. Subsidence models alone cannot inform the global warming potential of peatland drainage.

...Key findings of the study: The lower the water table, the higher the rate of carbon loss[, and m]ore studies in tropical peatland plantations are needed to reduce uncertainty about the global warming potential of peat drainage....

A palm oil plantation in  Cigudeg, Bogor, shot by Achmad Rabin Taim, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

The dirty business of palm oil

Nils Klawitter in Spiegel Interntional: ...Bangku is located at the center of Indonesia's Sumatra island. It's a city full of people that have been pushed off their property and has been a flash point for years in one of the country's bloodiest land conflicts. Palm oil is at the center of the dispute. Almost every second product available in today's supermarkets contains the cheap natural resource, which is often labeled as "vegetable oil," masking its true identity. Palm oil can be found in shampoos, but also in margarine, frozen pizzas, ice cream and lipstick.

There are hundreds of conflicts over land with palm oil companies in Indonesia, but Bungku is considered to be one of the worst. The area's forest, which once provided nourishment to those who lived there, fell victim to the giant palm oil plantations of the firm Asiatic Persada in the mid-1980s. In the following years, the company's bulldozers illegally claimed a further 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) of rain forest -- an area about half the size of Berlin. Included were areas for which indigenous people's held guaranteed land rights. But they were of little use against the palm oil industry.

On numerous occasions, mercenaries drove out village residents who attempted to return to the "land of our forefathers," as they say. The most recent incident happened only months ago. It's an unequal battle because it essentially pits tribal people against the henchmen of multinational behemoths like Wilmar.

Asia's leading agricultural concern supplies food companies like Anglo-Dutch consumer goods producer Unilever or Swiss multinational Nestlé. And for years Wilmar owned Asiatic Persada.

..."The World Bank also bears some responsibility for the death toll," says Feri Irawan, an environmental activist based in the nearby city of Jambi who has been observing the conflict for years. Irawan says the World Bank long showered Wilmar with loans, in complete disregard for the company's tangle of land conflicts...

A palm oil concession in Riau, Sumatra, shot by Hayden, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Mars latest to announce “no deforestation” palm oil pledge

Carey Biron in IPS: The multinational food giant Mars, Inc. unveiled Monday a new set of guidelines aimed at ensuring that its palm oil supply lines are completely traceable and sustainable by next year.

Global demand for palm oil has increased substantially in recent years, for use in both foods and household goods. Yet the industry, overwhelmingly centred in Malaysia and Indonesia, has been rife with environmental and labour problems.

Recent months, however, have seen a cascade of major reform commitments from both palm oil suppliers and well-known consumer brands such as Mars.

“Rapid expansion of palm oil plantations continues to threaten environmentally sensitive areas of tropical rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, as well as the rights of communities that depend on them for their livelihoods,” Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, best known as the maker of M&Ms and other candies, said Monday.

“We believe that these additional measures will not only help build a genuinely sustainable pipeline for Mars, but will also help accelerate change across the industry by encouraging our suppliers to only source from companies whose plantations and farms are responsibly run.”...

A shot of some M&Ms by Bribri2B, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Indonesian palm oil firm to pay losses in 'historic' ruling

Seed Daily via AFP: An Indonesian court has ordered a palm oil company to pay almost $30 million to the state for illegally clearing peatland in a "historic" ruling, lawyers said Thursday. The Meulaboh district court on Sumatra island ruled late Wednesday that Indonesian company Kallista Alam had illegally burnt vegetation on 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of peatland in Aceh province to clear it for a palm oil plantation.

In the civil case brought by the Ministry of Environment, the court ordered the company to pay 114.3 billion rupiah ($9.4 million) in losses to the state and 252 billion rupiah to rehabilitate the land it destroyed.

The forest was protected under several laws, including a presidential decree suspending new permits to log peatland and some other types of forests across the country. Using fire to clear land is also illegal. The practice has sent choking haze across parts of Southeast Asia in recent years.

"This is a historic moment for law enforcement on environmental issues in Indonesia. We hope it will deter plantation companies from damaging the environment," the environment ministry's lawyer, Syafruddin, told AFP....

On a palm plantation in Indonesia, shot by Wagino 20100516, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Researchers slam palm oil initiative as industry meets

Seed Daily via AFP: Forests are still disappearing and local communities disregarded by palm oil development despite a plan to put the sector on a sustainable footing, researchers warned as an industry gathering kicked off Thursday.

After conducting 16 case studies in Africa and Southeast Asia, the hubs of the palm oil industry, researchers said in a new book they were disappointed with a joint industry-NGO initiative to reduce the sector's impact.

The criticism came as the group behind the initiative, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), began its annual meeting in Indonesia. "Since its founding 8 years ago, the RSPO has adopted good standards, but too many member companies are not delivering on these paper promises," said Marcus Colchester, one of the authors of the book "Conflict or Consent? The oil palm sector at a crossroads".

The RSPO was created in 2004 by members of the palm oil industry with the support of governments and non-governmental organisations such as the WWF to take a voluntary approach to limit the environmental and social impact of industrial farming....

NASA image of palm oil cultivation on Borneo

France promises Malaysia no palm oil 'discrimination'

Seed Daily via AFP: French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Monday assured Malaysia that European rules on declaring product ingredients would not "discriminate" against palm oil, the target of environmentalists over its ecological impact.

Malaysia is second only to Indonesia in the production of palm oil, which is blamed for the destruction of huge swathes of rainforest to make way for vast plantations of the palm trees from which the edible oil is derived.

The French Senate last year approved a quadrupling of the tax on palm oil despite protests from major producing nations Malaysia and the Ivory Coast, but the move was later rejected by France's lower house.

"I know how important it is to Malaysia given the number of people who rely on palm oil production for a living, in particular small producers," Ayrault told a press conference with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak after they held talks...

Oil palms in Malaysia, shot by Craig, public domain

Can Indonesian palm oil be sustainable?

Daemeter Consulting: Daemeter announces publication of  a new document titled, “Oil Palm in Indonesia: Governance, Decision-making & Implications for Sustainable Development,” published by The Nature Conservancy and authored by Gary D. Paoli, Piers Gillespie, Philip L. Wells , Lex Hovani, Aisyah Sileuw, Neil Franklin, and James Schweithelm.

The purpose of the document is to describe Indonesian oil palm decision -making processes in terms that are understandable to a range of audiences, including government officials, the private sector, civil society, international consumers, and donors. This report aims to (a) provide a balanced perspective to help bridge between proponents and critics of oil palm, and (b) highlight opportunities to align decision-making more closely with Indonesia’s Green Growth objectives.

The document organizes a selection of key decisions made by different actors involved in palm oil development, explains how decisions affect development outcomes, and recommends ways to support ongoing improvements in performance. This information provides a basis for a more informed policy dialogue, drawing attention to concrete means for improving decisions, and giving actors a better sense of their role and how they might collaborate more effectively to achieve particular outcomes....

Deforestation and forest burning for oil palm plantation in the buffer zone of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Shot by Aidenvironment, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Indonesia names Sinar Mas, APRIL, among eight firms behind Singapore haze

Jessica Cheam in Eco-Business: Indonesia has blamed eight companies, including Singapore-based Sinar Mas and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) for the fires raging across its land of Sumatra that has blanketed parts of Malaysia and parts of Singapore in its most severe haze in history.

Senior presidential aide Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was reported by news wires on Friday saying: “The majority of hotspots in Riau (province) are inside APRIL and Sinar Mas concessions,” The environment minister said not all eight companies were Singapore based, but declined to name the rest of them. He added that investigations are still ongoing and he was not able to elaborate further where these companies are from, although Indonesia is expected to name the companies in the next few days.

Indonesian Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya met his counterpart from Singapore, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan in Jakarta on Friday, who handed a letter from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Dr Balakrishnan had earlier in the week called on Indonesia to name and shame the companies so that commercial pressure can be applied on them to prevent and address the haze.

Some of the world’s major largest palm oil companies such as Singapore-based Wilmar International and Malaysia-based Sime Darby have denied involvement in the burning, although Wilmar has been reported to say it cannot control local practices of slash-and-burn for agricultural and other purposes...

Singapore haze on June 17, 2013, shot by Brian Jeffery Beggerly, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Palm oil expansion threatens Congo Basin forests

Megan Rowling in AlertNet): Industrial cultivation of oil palm has "wreaked havoc" on rainforests and forest peoples in Southeast Asia and now threatens to do the same in the Congo Basin, a report from the Rainforest Foundation UK warned on Thursday.

Research commissioned by the forest protection group found that half a million hectares of new palm oil projects are getting underway in the Congo Basin rainforest, which will result in a fivefold increase in the area of large-scale palm plantations in the region. "This is a stark new threat to the second largest contiguous rainforest in the world," the report said.

Around 1.6 million hectares of new developments have been announced in the central African region since 2009, and palm oil companies are actively searching for bigger areas, the report said. Two thirds, or some 115 million hectares, of the total Congo Basin forest area is believed to have suitable soil and climate conditions for growing oil palms, it noted.

The forest area of the Congo Basin spans the borders of six countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Between 1990 and 2005, the expansion of oil palm cultivation - often illegal - resulted in the deforestation of 1.1 million hectares in Malaysia and 1.7 million hectares in Indonesia, according to the report. Between 50 and 60 percent of oil palm development in the two countries during this time occurred at the expense of natural forests, it added.

"The human cost of palm oil production has been alienation of forest peoples from their land, land conflicts and the pollution or over-use of water sources," it said. "Oil palm expansion on peat forests has been a major contributor to increased climate change emissions."...

Logging in the northern Republic of Congo, via NASA

Environmental hangover from Indonesia's palm oil thirst

Seed Daily via AFP: The roar of chainsaws has replaced birdsong, the once-lush, green jungle scorched to a barren grey. The equivalent of six football pitches of forest is lost every minute in Indonesia. The disappearance of the trees has pushed thousands of animals -- from the birds they harbour and sustain to orangutans, gibbons and black panthers -- out of their natural homes and habitats.

They have been replaced by plantations that are too nutrient-poor to support such wildlife, instead dedicated solely to producing fruit that is pulped to make oil used globally in products ranging from food to fuel.

A palm oil tree can yield useable fruit in three years and continue doing so for the next 25 years. But such wealth creation has meant environmental destruction.  "We don't see too many orangutans any more", said a worker with a weather-beaten face, taking a break in the shade of a hut built on a path gouged out of the forest floor.

Experts believe there are about 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 80 percent of them in Indonesia's Borneo and the rest in Malaysia. Exact data on their decline is hard to come by, say primatologists.

"What we see now is a contest between orangutans and palm oil for a home," said Sri Suci Utami Atmoko from National University in Jakarta. "You can judge that the population is depleting from the loss of orangutan habitats."….

Deforestation and forest burning for oil palm plantation in the buffer zone of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Shot by Aidenvironment, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Guatemala's palm industry leaves locals contemplating an uncertain future

Myles Estey in the povermatters blog at Guardian (UK): ...A dozen dirt-floored homes dot Semochán, in the northern Guatemalan state of Petén. The predominantly indigenous Q'eqchi residents harvest maize and beans from small plots of family-owned land. But over the past decade, the semi-tropical climate and flat terrain has attracted the interest of palm growers. Hoping to cash in on the growing global demand for palm oil (used mainly in commercial baked goods), they have reportedly bought more than 20,000 hectares of arable land in the region.

"They have encircled us and we no longer have the right to cross our community," says Sandra*, who – since former neighbours sold the plots between her own and the town itself – must cross an oil palm plantation in order to reach the land she legally owns. An agreement has been reached to allow her access, but she fears the plantation workers, far from honouring it, will continue to intimidate both her and other women in the community with threats of eviction.

"They came on my parcel, and they asked me: 'Are you going to sell your land?' I told them I wouldn't," she said of her latest conversation. "They told me that, someday, I would find myself not enjoying my land any more, no matter what. That is how things were left." Residents in several nearby villages are uneasy about the future of their land, with many worried that the environmental side-effects associated with the palm plantations will render it worthless.

Santos Natalio Chic, an investigator with the national commission on displaced people in Guatemala, believes that – beyond the intimidation – company representatives have intentionally misled residents, whether by claiming that floods will render their land useless or offering spurious guarantees of lifelong employment. "You never see their promises," says Chic. "They say: 'This will bring development to the communities,' when really what it means is more poverty."...

Patchwork of cultivated fields on mountain slope in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Shot by the pink slip, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Cameroon palm oil plantation deal 'must be stopped': report

AFP: A large palm oil plantation project in development in Cameroon since 2010 will put livelihoods and ecosystems in peril if allowed to continue, a US-based think-tank warned Wednesday. "With the loss of livelihoods by thousands of Cameroonians on the line and critical and unique ecosystems in peril, this project must be stopped," the Oakland Institute said in a report Wednesday.

Authoured in collaboration with Greenpeace International, the report said the project from SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC) was a case of massive deforestation disguised as a sustainable development project.

In 2009, Cameroon granted SGSOC, a subsidiary of US firm Herakles Farms, over 73,000 hectares (180,000 acres) of land in the country's southwest to develop the plantation and refinery through a 99-year land lease.

But much of the project area is in a "biodiversity hotspot" that "serves as a vital corridor between five different protected areas," the institute said. It added that many locals fear the plantation would "restrict their access to lands held by their ancestors for generations" or that they would "lose land for farming as well as access to critical natural resources and forest products."…