Lowering environmental costs of oil‐palm expansion in Colombia

Conservation Letters

John Garcia-Ulloa³  Sean Sloan²  Pablo Pacheco¹  Jaboury Ghazoul³ 

[1] Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Jalan CIFOR Situ Gede, Bogor Barat 16115, Indonesia;Tropical Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Science, School of Marine & Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Qld 4870, Australia;Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zürich, CHN H 71, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

关键词: Biomass carbon;    conservation;    land‐use planning;    scenario analysis;    tropical deforestation;   

DOI  :  10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00254.x

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Colombia is the fifth largest producer of palm oil in the world. The country's government and oil-palm farmers association target a sixfold increase of crude palm-oil production by 2020. We model the impacts of expanding oil-palm agriculture in Colombia through a spatially explicit scenario analysis. We demonstrate that the impacts of oil-palm expansion (e.g., deforestation, conversion of natural savannahs) would be minimized by establishing new plantations on pasture lands, given the low environmental value and economic utility, and the high agricultural potential of this land use. Impacts of oil-palm expansion on beef and dairy production could be compensated by improving productivity of pasture lands elsewhere. However, the profitability of oil-palm production in these areas might suffer over the long term due to high land purchase costs.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
©2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.