Exploring the unintended consequences of zerodeforestation oil palm

背景：对热带雨林损失的担忧促使企业做出零毁林承诺（zdc），以减少碳排放和因棕榈油等热带商品造成的生物多样性损失。这意味着他们将消除与他们生产、交易和/或销售的商品有关的森林砍伐。然而，如果它们导致油棕种植泄漏或转移到其他受威胁的生物群落，如稀树草原和干燥的热带森林，则可能对生物多样性产生意想不到的后果。除了可能需要更大的土地面积外，这些干旱栖息地的产量可能更低，影响小农的生计。zdc对生物多样性或生计的意外后果可能是严重的，但尚未得到探索。目的：本项目将以油棕产地中非为重点，开展实地考察，探索在稀树草原种植油棕的后果。从小型农场和商业种植园收集新的实地数据，该项目将：(1)量化生物多样性（地面植物群和蚂蚁）、生态系统功能和碳储量的变化；(2)确定产量-生物多样性权衡及其与雨林生物群落的差异；(3)制定热带稀树草原高保护价值指标，促进对这些开放生物群落中重要生物多样性要素的保护。新颖性和时效性：虽然可持续油棕和热带森林生物多样性的保护受到了广泛关注，但zdc可能会对其他生物群系产生意想不到的后果。森林生物群落可用于油棕种植的面积正在缩小，因此稀树草原和其他生物群落日益受到油棕扩张的威胁；这种情况已经在中非部分地区发生，并计划进行更多的发展。现有的热带雨林环境评估程序（如高碳储量法）可能不适用于稀树草原。随着可持续发展政策扩大到包括其他热带生物群落，迫切需要了解油棕扩张对环境的影响。

Background:Concerns about the loss of tropical rainforests have led companies to make zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) to reduce carbon emissions and biodiversity losses due to tropical commodities, such as palm oil. This means they will eliminate deforestation associated with commodities that they produce, trade and/or sell. However, ZDCs could have unintended consequences for biodiversity if they cause leakage or displacement of oil palm cultivation into other threatened biomes, such as savannas and dry tropical forests. In addition to potentially requiring greater land area, yields may be lower in these drier habitats, affecting smallholder farmer livelihoods. The unintended consequences of ZDCs for biodiversity or livelihoods could be severe, but have not yet been explored.Objectives:Focusing on Central Africa, a region where oil palm is native, this project will carry out fieldwork to explore the consequences of cultivating oil palm in savannas. Collecting new field data from smallholdings and commercial plantations, the project will:(1) Quantify changes in biodiversity (ground flora and ants), ecosystem functioning and carbon stocks;(2) Determine yield-biodiversity trade-offs and how they differ from those in rainforest biomes;(3) Develop indicators of High Conservation Values for savannas that will facilitate the protection of important biodiversity elements in these open biomes.Novelty and timeliness:While sustainable oil palm and conservation of tropical forest biodiversity has received much attention, there may be unintended consequences of ZDCs for other biomes. ZDCs are shrinking the area available for oil palm cultivation in forest biomes, and so savannas and other biomes are increasingly under threat from oil palm expansion; this is already happening in parts of Central Africa with more development planned. Existing environmental assessment procedures (such as the High Carbon Stock Approach) for rainforests may not be appropriate for savannas. Understanding the environmental impacts of oil palm expansion is needed urgently with policies for sustainable development expanded to include other tropical biomes.