Reducing Carbon Emissions from Forest Conversion for Oil Palm Agriculture in Gabon

Abstract

Growing demand for palm oil is driving its expansion into the African tropics, potentially leading to significant carbon emissions if tropical forest is converted to palm monoculture. In this first study of a Central African oil palm concession (31,800 ha), we predict that the conversion of 11,500 ha of logged forest to a palm plantation in Gabon will release 1.50 Tg C (95% CI = [1.29, 1.76]). These emissions could be completely offset over 25 years through sequestration in planned forest set-asides given a 2.6:1 ratio of logged to converted forest. Using an agricultural suitability model, we find that careful national land-use planning could largely avoid high carbon emissions while meeting goals for palm oil production. We recommend that Gabon adopts a national carbon threshold for land conversion and requires concession-level set-aside ratios that meet no-net emissions criteria as mechanisms for steering plantations away from high carbon forests

Vertebrate community composition and diversity declines along a defaunation gradient radiating from rural villages in Gabon

“…; Burton et al . ). Based on theory and previous studies, several a priori and mutually non‐exclusive predictions can be made about how defaunation will proceed in Central Africa.…”

“…Due to their relative remoteness, Central African forests have been largely spared from large-scale defaunation compared to American, Asian and West African tropical forests. The era of relative isolation, however, is coming to an end as industry and agriculturelogging, palm oil, rubberincreasingly open human access to forests (Wich et al 2014;Burton et al 2016). Based on theory and previous studies, several a priori and mutually non-exclusive predictions can be made about how defaunation will proceed in Central Africa.…”

Forest structure determines the abundance and distribution of large lianas in Gabon

“…In either case, land‐use activities such as industrial logging and agriculture that extract large trees and convert forest into plantation are having the most immediate effects on Central African forests, imperilling both large trees and large lianas (e.g. Medjibe et al ., ; Burton et al ., ). The future of large lianas and trees is interrelated: our study highlights the need to better understand large liana–tree dynamics in Central Africa and across the tropics to predict future effects arising from global change.…”

Landscape‐level validation of allometric relationships for carbon stock estimation reveals bias driven by soil type

“…One of the most pressing challenges for advancing forest carbon estimation is the derivation and testing of accurate allometric models and determining the appropriate scales at which they are valid. Where some assessments require accurate site-level carbon estimates to determine whether an area meets a threshold for carbon neutral development (e.g., palm oil; Burton et al 2017) or examine carbon-biodiversity relationships (e.g., Ali and Yan 2017), others look to extrapolate carbon stocks across landscapes to understand national or global level carbon budgets. The selection of allometric models in these scenarios could markedly affect the outcomes depending on the scale at which the study is conducted.…”