REDD+ and Palm Oil

Smallholders, with less than 50 ha in Malaysia, are earning a steady income from the production of palm oil, which is linked to the large-scale corporate industry manufacturing oils, cosmetics components, biofuels, natural fertilisers and soaps, says Malaysian Minister of plantation industries an

Industrial palm oil production is coming to Africa, its ancestral home. The world’s most productive oil seed has been a boon to Asian economies, but the looming arrival of large-scale plantations in Africa is raising fears that some of the same issues plaguing Malaysia, Indonesia, and other leading producers — deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, conflicts with local people, and poor working conditions — could befall one of the world’s most destitute regions.

Indonesia's forests were cleared at a rate of 1.5 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2009, reports a new satellite-based assessment by Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), an NGO. Expansion of oil palm and wood-pulp plantations were the biggest drivers of deforestation, yet account for a declining share of the national economy.