Palm oil has become part of our daily lives, but a recent study by EPFL and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) serves as a reminder that intensive farming of this crop has a major impact on the environment. Both short- and long-term solutions exist, however.
Palm oil has become part of our daily lives, but a recent study by EPFL and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) serves as a reminder that intensive farming of this crop has a major impact on the environment. Both short- and long-term solutions exist, however.
Indonesia and Malaysia together account for nearly 85% of global palm oil production. This oil is commonly used in processed foods, cosmetics and biofuels, and while it is inexpensive, the environmental and social costs are high. Each year, thousands of hectares of rainforest disappear in order to meet the growing demand for the oil worldwide. In 2012, Indonesia had the highest deforestation rate in the world, according to a study published in 2014 in Nature Climate Change.
Thomas Guillaume, a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL’s Ecological Systems Laboratory (ECOS) and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), is the lead author of a synthesis study on the environmental impact of oil palm cultivation in Indonesia. The article, which was published on 19 June in Nature Communications, analyzed the carbon costs and benefits of converting rainforests into oil palm plantations. Drawing on more than two years’ worth of data collected by the University of Göttingen on the soil and vegetation in central Sumatra, the researcher compared the impact of oil palm monoculture with that of intensive and extensive rubber cultivation practices.
Converting rainforest land into oil palm plantations leads to the most important carbon emissions: one hectare of converted land equates to a loss of 174 tons of carbon, and most of this carbon will find its way into the air as CO2. “The quantity of carbon released when just one hectare of forest is cleared to grow oil palms is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon produced by 530 people flying from Geneva to New York in economy class,” says the researcher.
Read more at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Image: This is Thomas Guillaume, lead author, collecting samples in Sumatra, Indonesia. (Credit: © EPFL / WSL)
