Oil palm supplies >30% of world vegetable oil production.
Plantation expansion is occurring throughout the tropics, predominantly in
Indonesia, where forests with heterogeneous carbon stocks undergo high
conversion rates. Quantifying oil palm’s contribution to global carbon budgets
therefore
requires refined spatio-temporal assessments of land cover
converted to plantations. Here, we report
oil palm development across Kalimantan (538,346 km2) from
1990 to 2010, and project expansion to
2020 within government-allocated leases.
journal reference (free): nature >>
see also:
Stanford researchers show oil palm plantations are clearingcarbon-rich tropical forests in Borneo >>