4.5 Reading: How does palm oil affect climate and biodiversity?

 4.5 Reading: How does palm oil affect climate and biodiversity?

·       What are the connections between palm oil and climate?  Palm oil production has both direct and indirect connection with climate change and it impacts. The growing demand for palm oil has mounted pressure on land for planting oil palm especially in tropical forests. The plants and trees in the forest play a unique role in absorbing the CO₂ produced by animals during respiration and gives out oxygen in the atmosphere (clean gas) in the process of photosynthesis. Most importantly, the GHG and CO₂ emitted in the atmosphere are largely absorbed and stored in the trunks of forest trees and soils, so when trees are cut down or uprooted and the soil exposed, the CO₂ will be released back to the atmosphere causing global warming. But this is not the major cause of climate change, as burning of fossil from industrial activities could be the leading contribution to the production of GHG in the atmosphere. Therefore, oil palm planting demand for land clearing causing deforestation limiting the mitigation of Climate change.

 

·       What are the connections between palm oil and biodiversity? The connection between palm oil and biodiversity could be explained in many ways. Fundamentally, the production of palm starts from planting of the oil palm as large plantation that requires huge hectares of land to produce many tons of palm and it derivatives. The land demanded may naturally occupied by rich biodiversity of plant and animal species that would require to removed or cleared for the purpose of planting palm oil plantation. The rich species will offset for the land for planting oil palm. This process will consequently remove or clear plant and animal of conservation concern. More so, vegetation clearing would apparently impact the biodiversity. Oil palm plantation do not allow growing of cover crops that could help to maintain the biodiversity or improve soil condition. Oil palm plantation alter biodiversity, through clearing (deforestation) of large hectares of land, forest fragmentation affecting animal movements, soil erosion, decreases soil texture and organic matter, and poor nitrogen fixation for a long period of time. The potential for Africa and Mesoamerica to be more suitable for oil palm plantation threatens the biodiversity of these regions and making forests vulnerable.

 

·       Which places and people are most affected?  

According to this authors, the current land cover in Mesoamerica and Africa are the people and people who have the potential to be mostly affected because of these places are the only most suitable regions good for oil palm plantation. Furthermore, countries with tropical forest have also the potential to be impacted. And within these countries the local land owners and land users for agriculture could also be likely to be impacted.  

• To what extent do you think the public is aware of these impacts? 

In my view, I think there is little knowledge and public awareness of the impact of palm oil production on climate and biodiversity. This goes especially for most African countries where information on environment and policy compliance is low. Such information about the impact of oil palm plantation should be disclosed during Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) but this aspect is normally trivialized when it comes to information sharing. Another reason for the little knowledge on the impact of this plant on the environment is that public disclosure of findings from the EIA studies are normally disclosed in technical form to mostly the affected communities where the plantation is established. Because of the low level of education most people (some Africa Countries) do not comprehend the impacts that are normally presented to them but concord of their leaders.   

• What would interventions look like to address these impacts?  

ü  Awareness raising from global to local level

ü  EIA disclosure concerning oil palm plantation and palm oil production should be prepared and presented in the simplest form that can be understood by local community.

ü  There is need for increased monitoring and interventions on the impact assessment of oil pam plantation

ü  According to the author government regulations, enforcement, and monitoring, combined with voluntary market initiatives by the largest buyers and sellers of palm oil, are good ways for the to hold on to their promise for stemming oil palm driven deforestation.