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Deforestation

Sustainable palm oil puts grasslands at risk

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 178–179 (2023)Cite this article

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Zero-deforestation policies are reducing the loss of tropical rainforest to oil palm expansion, but spatial analyses indicate that this may cause unintended large-scale loss of biodiverse grasslands and dry forests unless protections are extended under certification agreements.

Meeting the nutritional needs of a growing human population will require high-yielding crops that can maximize food production within the available land footprint. Despite being maligned for its role in driving deforestation trends, oil palm is the highest-yielding oil crop and thus has an important part to play in the drive towards global food security. Encouragingly, widespread adoption of zero-deforestation agreements by palm oil producers has contributed to slowing rates of forest loss attributable to oil palm expansion in some areas1,2. However, writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Fleiss et al.3 highlight a potential fly in the ointment: these market levers could risk displacing palm oil impacts into tropical grasslands and dry forests, where consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services could sometimes be even more severe.

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Fig. 1: Grassland frontier.

Catherine L. Parr.

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  1. Schools of Environmental & Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    James J. Gilroy

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  1. James J. Gilroy
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Correspondence to James J. Gilroy.

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Gilroy, J.J. Sustainable palm oil puts grasslands at risk. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 178–179 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01913-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01913-w

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