oil palm
-
New map helps track palm-oil supply chains in Borneo
In 2013, a number of major palm-oil buyers, traders and producers promised to stop clearing natural forests. The global multi-billion-dollar…
5 min read -
Financing farmers: Can funds for oil palm help save our forests?
Palm oil: people love it, hate it or maybe just use it without even knowing. The controversial vegetable oil is…
7 min read -
Fire and haze: Better business practices
The damaging practice of clearing land by burning has spread across Indonesia since at least the 1990s, employed by large…
2 min read -
Making peat a priority
This week the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, IUFRO, is holding its 125th Anniversary Congress in Freiburg, Germany. IUFRO…
6 min read -
The long and winding road to sustainable palm oil
The polemic around the expansion of oil palm plantations in the tropics continues, and increasingly involves consumers concerned with sustainability.…
12 min read -
Voices of women in palm oil
Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, CIFOR and partners held a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on ‘Governing oil palm…
7 min read -
Gender and oil palm
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil, churning out an estimated 33 million tons in 2016. Needless…
3 min read -
For a better Borneo, new map reveals how much terrain has changed
When a tree falls in Borneo, does it make a sound? A new interactive atlas developed by the Center for…
5 min read -
Delving into drivers of deforestation
Debates over forest loss in Borneo generally focus on the extent to which industrial plantations are to blame: those on…
6 min read -
Situating smallholders at the fore
Mediating the push and pull of agricultural expansion and conservation is no easy task. Add to that smallholders – who…
4 min read -
Backwards from gender equality: Oil palm’s impact on Dayak women
Pe Ligit* has witnessed massive changes in her lifetime, as waves of migration, logging and oil palm development have transformed…
9 min read -
What do locals think of large-scale tree plantations?
Large-scale tree plantations are expanding worldwide, and so are the controversies they trigger. Tree plantations in the tropics are frequently…
4 min read -
What will it take to make sustainable palm oil the norm?
Most people want to do the right thing in life. But sometimes doing what’s right can be costly or inconvenient.…
5 min read -
Why ‘zero deforestation’ is only one piece of the sustainability puzzle
In the midst of efforts to achieve ‘zero deforestation’, it’s important to remember that halting deforestation is not just about…
11 min read -
“Slash and burn” works, given time and space
It’s long been stigmatized, blamed for destroying forests and releasing greenhouse gases. But, when done properly, shifting cultivation can create…
5 min read