Deforestation risks posed by oil palm expansion in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

Further expansion of agriculture in the tropics is likely to accelerate the loss of biodiversity. One crop of concern to conservation is African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). We examined recent deforestation associated with oil palm in the Peruvian Amazon within the context of the region's other crops. We found more area under oil palm cultivation (845 km 2 ) than did previous studies. While this comprises less than 4% of the cropland in the region, it accounted for 11% of the deforestation from agricultural expansion from 2007-2013. Patches of oil palm agriculture were larger and more spatially clustered than for other crops, potentially increasing their impact on local habitat fragmentation. Modeling deforestation risk for oil palm expansion using climatic and edaphic factors showed that sites at lower elevations, with higher precipitation, and lower slopes than those typically used for intensive agriculture are at long-term risk of deforestation from oil palm agriculture. Within areas at long-term risks, based on CART models, areas near urban centers, roads, and previously deforested areas are at greatest short-term risk of deforestation. Existing protected areas and officially recognized indigenous territories cover large areas at long-term risk of deforestation for oil palm (>40%). Less than 7% of these areas are under strict (IUCN I-IV) protection. Based on these findings, we suggest targeted monitoring for oil palm deforestation as well as strengthening and expanding protected areas to conserve specific habitats.

Annual oil palm plantation maps in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2001 to 2016

“…Since 465 the data scarcity of successive Landsat imagery is common across the world, the algorithm described in this study provides an effective way of combining coarse data to update the annual land cover change. Further, inventory compilation and manual visualization of oil palm change in large extent would remain labour and time consuming (Gaveau et al, 2016;Miettinen et al, 2016;Vijay et al, 2018). Our semi-automatic algorithm in oil palm mapping may thus help to establish a long-term monitoring for oil palm, that can be improved over time with regular validation using ground-based observation or very high-resolution 470 images such as Google Earth.…”

“…According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Malaysia and Indonesia account for 85.11% of the global oil palm production in 2013, which has increased by 163% 35 from 2000 to 2013 (see http://faostat.fao.org) and will continue growing (Corley, 2009). The boom of oil palm industries caused and also raised the deforestation risks (Austin et al, 2018;Vijay et al, 2018), particularly in regions like Malaysia and Indonesia where forest cover dropped from 76% to 9% since 1990 (Miettinen et al, 2016). A series of consequences include but not limited in biodiversity decline (Fitzherbert et al, 2008), peatland loss (Koh et al, 2011) and carbon emission (Guillaume et al, 2018).…”

“…tree counting age and yield estimation (Balasundram et al, 60 2013;Tan et al, 2013) and etc. A few studies also focused on the continuous oil palm change detection (Carlson et al, 2013;Gaveau et al, 2016;Vijay et al, 2018). These studies adopted visual or semi-automatic interpretation for oil palm plantation, which is labor-extensive and not appropriate for long-term annual oil palm plantation monitoring.…”

Migration and forests in the Peruvian Amazon: A review

“…The emphasis on oil palm was linked in part to the creation of 'alternative development' projects that aimed to replace coca cultivation (Bennett et al 2018a). The Proinversion program sought to increase production of palm oil which led to 845 km 2 of oil palm plantations in the Amazon region as of 2015 (Vijay et al 2018).…”

Do riparian forest strips in modified forest landscapes aid in conserving bat diversity?

“…Among agricultural activities, development of palm plantations has expanded rapidly throughout the world's lowland tropics, resulting in considerable loss of forest (Curtis, Slay, Harris, Tyukavina, & Hansen, ; Phalan et al, ). Much of this development is focused on African oil palm ( Elaeis guianensis ), which has raised considerable concern because of its negative impacts on biodiversity (Vijay, Reid, Finer, Jenkins, & Pimm, ; Wilcove & Koh, ). Development of oil palm has exploded in the last decade concentrated in Asia and Africa, and only more recently has begun to play a significant role in South America (Pirker, Mosnier, Kraxner, Havlik, & Obersteiner, ).…”