Mitigation of unwanted direct and indirect land‐use change – an integrated approach illustrated for palm oil, pulpwood, rubber and rice production in North and East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

The widespread production of cash crops can result in the decline of forests, peatlands, rice fields and local community land. Such unwanted land-use and land-cover (LULC) change can lead to decreased carbon stocks, diminished biodiversity, displaced communities and reduced local food production. In this study, we analysed to what extent four main commodities, namely, palm oil, pulpwood, rice and rubber, can be produced in North and East Kalimantan in Indonesia without such unwanted LULC change. We investigated the technical potential of four measures to mitigate unwanted LULC change between 2008 and 2020 under low, medium and high scenarios, referring to the intensities of the mitigation measures compared with those implemented in 2008. These measures are related to land sparing through (i) the improvements of yields, (ii) chain efficiencies, (iii) chain integration and (iv) the steering of any expansion of these commodities to suitable and available underutilised (potentially degraded) lands. Our analyses resulted in a land-sparing potential of 0.4-1.2 Mha (i.e. 24-62% of the total land demand of the commodities) between 2008 and 2020, depending on the land-use projection of the four commodities and the scenario for implementing the mitigation measures. Additional expansion on underutilised land is the most important mitigation measure (45-62% of the total potential), followed by yield improvements as the second most important mitigation measure (32-46% of the total potential). Our study shows that reconciling the production of palm oil, pulpwood, rice and rubber with the maintenance of existing agricultural lands, forests and peatlands is technically possible only (i) under a scenario of limited agricultural expansion, (ii) if responsible land zoning is applied and enforced and (iii) if the yields and chain efficiencies are strongly improved.

Minimum forest cover required for sustainable water flow regulation of a watershed: a case study in Jambi Province, Indonesia

“…In recent years, monoculture plantations have rapidly expanded in Southeast Asia, and the areas under oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations are expected to increase further (Fox et al, 2012;Van der Laan et al, 2016). In Indonesia, which is currently the largest palm oil producer worldwide, the oil palm plantation area increased from 7000 km 2 in 1990 to 110 000 km 2 in 2015 (Ditjenbun, 2015;Tarigan et al, 2016b), and a further 170 000-200 000 km 2 is projected for future oil palm development (Colchester et al, 2006;Wicke et al, 2011;Afriyanti et al, 2016).…”

Oil Palm and Rubber Tree Water Use Patterns: Effects of Topography and Flooding

“…Arg.) plantations cover large areas in tropical regions (FAO, 2016) and are projected to expand further (Fox et al, 2012; Van der Laan et al, 2016). In contrast, the area covered by natural forests has strongly declined over the last decades (Keenan et al, 2015).…”

Project level assessment of indirect land use changes arising from biofuel production

“…This idea was developed by the ILUC‐Prevention Project (Wicke et al, ) into a method to evaluate the risk of ILUC and provide measures to mitigate such risk in specific locations. The method has been successfully applied to assess biofuel production at regional level for example, in Hungary (Brinkman, Wicke, & Faaij, ), Poland (Gerssen‐Gondelach, Wicke, Borzęcka‐Walker, Pudełko, & Faaij, ), Indonesia (Van der Laan, Wicke, Verweij, & Faaij, ) and Romania (Brinkman, Hilst, Faaij, & Wicke, ). A similar method based on the low‐ILUC risk idea is the ‘LIIBs’ methodology (RSB, ) which consists of a set of criteria and indicators for economic operators to demonstrate that their operations have a low risk of ILUC.…”