Well managed Oil Palm plantations can play a role in biodiversity conservation

[UngulateNerd92]

The title of this article definitely triggers a lot of skepticism for me, but I would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this...

"Well managed Oil Palm plantations can play a role in biodiversity conservation

• Oil palm companies can play a role in conservation and help retain important biodiversity if forest set asides are large enough, and threats to biodiversity and habitat are managed effectively.
  
  
• Biodiversity can be found across the oil palm landscape, not only in forest set asides, which indicates the importance of landscape-scale management approach.
  
  
• There is no silver bullet solution to biodiversity management in oil palm plantations. Different interventions and solutions for management and monitoring (M&M) will be required depending on local context, and proper management have demonstrated good results.
  
  
• Strong support from company owner(s) or top management is integral in driving the biodiversity objective.
  
  
• While conservation benefits often originate from well-established biodiversity management, it is not clear if they were achieved due to RSPO certification."

Well managed Oil Palm plantations can play a role in biodiversity conservation | Articles

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

Thanks for sharing @UngulateNerd92 !

I'm ultimately cynical about it too but the RSPO's have been around for quite some time and it would make sense that they have refined the system over the years and even without a "silver bullet" they will have worked out a rough idea through trial and error what works and what doesn't.

Also one of the authors Erik Meijaard is quite a meticulous researcher has quite a high status within the academic side of conservation biology.

That said, I personally can't help but feel cynical towards the palm oil industry whether it be in Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia or West Africa.