University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences, Edinburgh, EH9 3FF, United Kingdom.
Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 10, 3012, Bern, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2019 Aug 15;9(1):11931. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-48443-3.
The increased demand for palm oil has led to an expansion of oil palm concessions in the tropics, and the clearing of abundant forest as a result. However, concessions are typically incompletely planted to varying degrees, leaving much land unused. The remaining forests within such concessions are at high risk of deforestation, as there are normally no legal hurdles to their clearance, therefore making them excellent targets for conservation. We investigated the location of oil palm plantations and the other major crop - rubber plantations in southern Myanmar, and compared them to concession boundaries. Our results show that rubber plantations cover much larger areas than oil palm in the region, indicating that rubber is the region's preferred crop. Furthermore, only 15% of the total concession area is currently planted with oil palm (49,000 ha), while 25,000 ha is planted outside concession boundaries. While this may in part be due to uncertain and/or changing boundaries, this leaves most of the concession area available for other land uses, including forest conservation and communities' livelihood needs. Reconsidering the remaining concession areas can also significantly reduce future emission risks from the region.
棕榈油需求的增加导致热带地区的油棕种植园不断扩大，大量森林因此被砍伐。然而，种植园的开垦通常是不完全的，存在大量未利用土地。这些种植园中的剩余森林面临着很高的森林砍伐风险，因为通常没有法律障碍来清除这些森林，因此它们成为了保护的绝佳目标。我们调查了缅甸南部的油棕种植园和其他主要作物——橡胶种植园的位置，并将其与种植园的边界进行了比较。研究结果表明，橡胶种植园的面积比该地区的油棕种植园大得多，这表明橡胶是该地区的首选作物。此外，目前只有 15%的种植园总面积（49000 公顷）种植了油棕，而 25000 公顷种植在种植园边界之外。虽然这可能部分是由于边界不确定和/或不断变化，但这为其他土地用途留出了大部分种植园面积，包括森林保护和社区生计需求。重新考虑剩余的种植园面积也可以显著降低该地区未来的排放风险。
