Exploring the unintended consequences of zerodeforestation oil palm

对热带雨林丧失的担忧促使企业做出零毁林承诺（ZDC），以减少棕榈油等热带商品造成的碳排放和生物多样性损失。这意味着它们将消除与其生产、贸易和/或销售的商品有关的森林砍伐。然而，零增长区如果导致油棕榈种植渗漏或转移到其他受威胁的生物群落，如热带稀树草原和干燥的热带森林，可能会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，这些干旱生境的产量可能更低，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，但尚未探索。目标：本项目将以油棕榈原产地中非为重点，开展实地考察，探讨在热带稀树草原种植油棕榈的后果。该项目从小块土地和商业种植园收集新的实地数据，将：（2）确定产量-生物多样性的权衡及其与雨林生物群落的区别;（3）制定热带稀树草原高养护价值指标，以促进保护这些开放生物群落中重要的生物多样性要素。虽然可持续油棕榈和热带森林生物多样性保护受到了广泛关注，但ZDC可能会对其他生物群落产生意想不到的后果。ZDC正在缩小森林生物群落中可用于油棕榈种植的面积，因此稀树草原和其他生物群落越来越受到油棕榈扩张的威胁;这已经在中非部分地区发生，并计划进行更多的开发。现有的雨林环境评估程序（如高碳储量方法）可能不适合热带稀树草原。迫切需要了解油棕扩张的环境影响，并将可持续发展政策扩大到包括其他热带生物群落。

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.