During the past decade there has been a growing interest in bioenergy, driven by concerns about global climate change, growing energy demand, and depleting fossil fuel reserves. The predicted rise in biofuel demand makes it important to understand the potential consequences of expanding biofuel cultivation. A systematic review was conducted on the biodiversity impacts of three first-generation biofuel crops (oil palm, soybean, and jatropha) in the tropics. The study focused on the impacts on species richness, abundance (total number of individuals or occurrences), community composition, and ecosystem functions related to species richness and community composition.

The environmental impacts of palm oil production have been in the spotlight for many years. Opinions abound about the impacts of oil palm plantations on biodiversity and ecosystem function, but how many of these are supported by research and to what extent are policies and practice informed by science? This Info Brief summarizes a systematic review of the scientific evidence and highlights some of the findings of immediate interest to policy and research communities.

Key messages The land-use change caused by oil palm expansion results in adverse impacts on ecosystem functions and services provided by natural forests.This study assesses the impacts of oil palm expansion on key ecosystem services and analyzes the trade-offs among ecosystem services under four plausible future land-use scenarios in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia: business as usual, moratorium, zero gross deforestation and sustainable intensification.A trade-off between carbon benefit and habitat quality was observed in the area with low carbon stock. Providing some habitat quality in areas of oil palm expansion enhanced the carbon benefit.A synergy between carbon sequestration and water yield was evident due to oil palm expansion on Dry Rice Land with Mixed Scrub under the zero gross deforestation scenario.Among the four plausible LULC scenarios, zero gross deforestation is the most desirable option for the study area in Central Kalimantan.A successful implementation of zero gross deforestation requires a review of the forest moratorium to encompass all forest types, a clear land-use policy strategy and a detailed land-use plan involving all jurisdictions and engagement of stakeholders.Sustainable intensification is the second-best land use and land cover option for oil palm expansion with an assumed average yield enhancement to 5 tCPO ha-1 yr-1. However, enhancing yield in smallholder farms by 78% is highly challenging. It may be achievable by providing appropriate and adequate technical and management supports to smallholder farms and by ensuring off-take markets for oil palm produced by smallholders.

This open access book presents a comprehensive analysis of biofuel use strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective using sustainability science. This interdisciplinary perspective (social science-natural science) means that the strategies and policy options proposed will have significant impacts on the economy and society alike. Biofuels are expected to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, revitalizing economies in agricultural communities and alleviating poverty. However, despite these anticipated benefits, international organizations such as the FAO, OECD and UN have published reports expressing concerns that biofuel promotion may lead to deforestation, water pollution and water shortages. The impacts of biofuel use are extensive, cross-sectoral and complex, and as such, comprehensive analyses are required in order to assess the extent to which biofuels can contribute to sustainable societies. Applying interdisciplinary sustainability science concepts and methodologies, the book helps to enhance the establishment of a sustainable society as well as the development of appropriate responses to a global need for urgent action on current issues related to biofuels.

This timely collection of 15 original essays written by expert scientists the world over addresses the relationships between human population growth, the need to increase food supplies to feed the world population, and the chances for avoiding the extinction of a major proportion of the world's plant and animal species that collectively makes our survival on Earth possible. These relationships are highly intertwined, and changes in each of them steadily decrease humankind’s chances to achieve environmental stability on our fragile planet. The world population is projected to be nine to ten billion by 2050, signaling the need to increase world food production by more than 70 percent on the same amount of land currently under production—and this without further damaging our fragile environment. The essays in this collection, written by experts for laypersons, present the problems we face with clarity and assess our prospects for solving them, calling for action but holding out viable solutions.

This book employs a political ecology lens to unravel how industrial crops catalyse ecological, agrarian, socioeconomic, and institutional transformation. Using the conceptual tools and perspectives of political ecology, namely multi-scalar analysis and attention to marginalisation, social difference, and discourses and narratives, this volume provides a critical and comprehensive assessment of the transformative power of industrial cropping systems. It presents a truly international overview by drawing on a range of case studies from the global South, including soybeans in South America, cashew nuts in Guinea Bissau, cotton in India, maize in China, jatropha in Ghana, sugarcane in Peru and Eswatini, and oil palm in Ghana and Peru. The unique case studies are put into perspective with chapters introducing the key concepts of political ecology and critical dimensions of industrial cropping systems related to large-scale land acquisitions, land grabbing, and marginal land. The individual chapters employ different approaches all rooted in political ecology, thus offering a rich overview of how the field engages with such cropping systems. Overall, this volume contains valuable propositions for improving current policies and practices in industrial crop settings in both developed and developing countries. Through its comprehensive and interdisciplinary outlook, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political ecology, agrarian studies, development studies, and ecological economics.

There is abundant literature focusing on the palm oil sector, which has grown into a vigorous sector with production originating mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, and on increased palm oil consumption in many countries around the globe, particularly European Union states, China and India. This sector expansion has become quite controversial, because while it has negative social and environmental impacts, it also leads to positive benefits in generating fiscal earnings for producing countries and regular income streams for a large number of large- and small-scale growers involved in palm oil production. This document reviews how the social, ecological, and environmental dynamics and associated implications of the global palm oil sector have grown in complexity over time, and examines the policy and institutional factors affecting the sector's development at the global and national levels. This work examines the geographies of production, consumption and trade of palm oil and its derivatives, and describes the structure of the global palm oil value chain, with special emphasis on Malaysia and Indonesia. In addition, this work reviews the main socioenvironmental impacts and trade-offs associated with the palm oil sector's expansion, with a primary focus on Indonesia. The main interest is on the social impacts this has on local populations, smallholders and workers, as well as the environmental impacts on deforestation and their associated effects on carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. Finally, the growing complexity of the global oil palm value chain has also driven diverse types of developments in the complex oil palm policy regime governing the sector's expansion. This work assesses the main features of this emerging policy regime involving public and private actors, with emphasis on Indonesia. There are multiple efforts supporting the transition to a more sustainable palm oil production; yet the lack of a coordinated public policy, effective incentives and consistent enforcement is clear and obvious. The emergence of numerous privately driven initiatives with greater involvement of civil society organizations brings new opportunities for enhancing the sector's governance; yet the uptake of voluntary standards remains slow, and any push for the adoption of more stringent standards may only widen the gap between large corporations and medium- and smallscale growers. Greater harmonization between voluntary and mandatory standards, as well as among private initiatives is required. Commitments to deforestation-free supply chains have the potential to reduce undesired environmental impacts from oil palm expansion, and while this risks excluding smallholders from the supply chains, such commitments may function to leverage the upgrading of smallholder production systems. Their success, however, will require greater public and private sector collaboration.

Key messages The global palm oil value chain has grown in complexity over time as have the public and private regulations governing the sector. This influences stakeholder decisions along the palm oil supply chain and the territories where it is produced.Weak alignment between the many regulatory initiatives has given rise to a 'transnational regime complex' that is struggling to resolve effectively many structural performance issues that have long plagued the palm oil sector.Key performance issues facing the palm oil sector relate to pervasive land conflict and informality, yield differences between companies and smallholders, and a high carbon debt linked to emissions arising from deforestation and peatlands conversion.Different disconnects, complementarities and antagonisms characterize current governance. Building connections and enhancing complementarities are important ways to gradually reduce antagonisms.Complementarities have emerged among instruments with global reach, whereas disconnects persist especially within public regulations, between regulations and private standards, and between standards operating across different territorial scales.Several connections can be built by better linking existing regulations, and public regulations and private standards at different levels. These could arise by embracing approaches that look at both supply chain and territorial management.The main policy targets to achieve sustainability and inclusivity are: 1) limiting the expansion of palm oil in high-carbon forests and peatlands; 2) adopting mechanisms to enhance transparency and accountabilities; 3) creating conditional incentives to intensify palm oil supply, mainly of smallholder farmers; 4) adopting new approaches to facilitate the upgrade of smallholder production systems; and 5) legalizing tenure claims under different types of rights recognition schemes.

Following the release of the guidelines on saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake in July 2023, WHO is currently developing guidelines on tropical oils. While Member States await the guidelines on tropical oils, there is a need for evidence for interim policy dialogues and guidance. The objective of this review is to rapidly identify and summarize existing evidence from published systematic reviews on the relationships between palm oil intake and mortality or cardiovascular health in children and adults, and to assess the methodological quality of these systematic reviews. This is one of the two rapid reviews: one on palm oil and the other on coconut oil.