Restoring understory and riparian areas in oil palm plantations does not increase greenhouse gas fluxes

Abstract

Oil palm (OP) plantations have replaced large areas of forest in the tropical landscape of Southeast Asia and are major emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). To move towards more environmentally friendly plantation management, a hopeful approach is to implement strategies to increase vegetation complexity. These options include relaxed management of understory vegetation to increase complexity in productive plantations, passive restoration of forest areas around rivers by leaving mature oil palm during replanting, and active forest restoration along river margins with planting of forest trees. These practices have the potential to deliver a range of benefits such as soil protection, reduced erosion and sedimentation in rivers, pest control and support for biodiversity, but little is known about their impact on greenhouse gas fluxes. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of improved understory growth management and the use of riparian forestry on GHG fluxes in OP plantations, making use of two long-term experiments (the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture Understory Vegetation (BEFTA UV) Project; the Riparian Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical Agriculture (RERTA) Project) in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. We measured nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ecosystem respiration (CO2) from mature OP sites with different levels of understory vegetation and different riparian buffer restoration treatments using the static chamber method. We used linear mixed effects models to test for treatment effects, whilst accounting for soil moisture and experimental design factors (time and space). The understory vegetation treatments (normal, reduced and enhanced complexity of understory) had no effect on N2O and CH4 flux. Regarding differences in ecosystem respiration, effects attributable to the understory vegetation treatments were not strong. For the riparian restoration treatments, the fixed effects variables in the models explained little variation in the fluxes of all GHGs. Therefore, given the proven benefits of more complex understory vegetation for supporting biodiversity and healthy ecosystem functioning, plus the potential for restored riparian buffers to support biodiversity and services and to reduce GHG emissions over time, our findings reinforce the concept that these features bring environmental benefits in OP landscapes, with no measurable effects on GHG emissions.