Palm Oil Production and Deforestation

Palm oil is a vegetable oil whose plant is native to Africa and can exclusively grow in the tropics. Because it is an extremely productive and versatile crop, its global demand has been increasing rapidly, since the beginning 20th century, causing its production to spread all over regions of Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), palm oil is found in 50% of packaged products including snack foods, detergent, cosmetics, etc. Also, around half of the world’s population depend on palm oil as a part of their diet. This is a demand that is predicted to increase 1.7% per year until 2050. Most of the worlds palm oil is produced on large, industrial plantations that are driving environmental issues like deforestation and as a result contributing to biodiversity loss and climate change.

A great demand of palm oil, as previously mentioned, have pushed out or taken the place of tropical forests across Asia, Latin America, and Africa, causing a great amount of deforestation. The highest quantity of this is happening in Indonesia and Malaysia. This is because today about 90% of the world's palm oil trees are grown on these islands. In a decade, Southeast Asia saw a tripled increase of palm oil plantations likely caused by the increase of the oil's production in both Indonesia and Malaysia. As indicated by the diagram below, this region, followed by those two countries, have the highest amount of palm oil production in the world.

Map 1: Indonesia and Malaysia Palm Oil Mills

Map 2: Indonesia and Malaysia Palm Oil Plantations

According to the World Wildlife Fund, there is a direct correlation between the deforestation occurring on these two islands and their high amounts of palm oil production (WWF). The two maps above show the locations and abundance of palm oil mills and plantations across Indonesia and Malaysia. Map 1 indicates that most mills are not RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified. RSPO certification shows a dedication to the sustainable production of palm oil and is the prime solution to the environmental issues attached to this industry. Unfortunately, as displayed, most mills in those two countries are not certified, corroborating that the deforestation occurring is correlated to palm oil production. Map 2 shows the plantations that the palm oil is grown on. These plantations replace forest lands that are essential to biodiversity.

Most of the worlds palm oil is produced on large, industrial plantations that are driving environmental issues like deforestation and as a result contributing to biodiversity loss and climate change.

Bellow are two maps that can depict most of the deforestation occurring because of palm oil production. On one hand, the first map shows the general tree cover loss, where the darker areas show a higher number of loss, while the second map goes beyond that to show the dominant driver of that tree cover loss. It is clear on Map 4 that most of the deforestation occurring on both islands is a result of the production of commodity. According to World's Top Exports, Indonesia and Malaysia's top commodity that would require farmed land and thus require the clearing forests is palm oil.

Map 3: Tree Cover Loss in Indonesia and Malaysia

Map 4: Dominant Driver of Tree Cover Loss

These maps maintain a pattern of location and concentration that parallels the plantation and mill maps, clearly showing that the gross deforestation occurring in both Indonesia and Malaysia is mostly and mainly the result of palm oil production. The fact that the tropical forests of these two countries, the most biodiverse ones in the world, are cut down for these plantations is an immense issue that needs to be addressed.