Understanding tropical deforestation, one pixel at a time

Designing effective policy responses to tropical deforestation requires an understanding of the reasons behind it, commonly called deforestation drivers. In the tropics, over 90% of deforestation is driven by agriculture [1], but the specific commodities differ substantially across regions. For example, palm oil has been the most prominent deforestation driver in Indonesia, while it is pasture in Brazil and small scale, shifting agriculture in Central Africa [1,2]. Drivers also change in time because of new policies, economic shifts or changes in agricultural practices. Therefore, to enable targeted measures, it is necessary to attribute each new deforestation event to a specific driver.

In a recent study published in ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Pišl et al. [3] propose a new approach to map deforestation drivers across the tropics. They train a deep learning model to recognize eleven land use classes, including the seven forest-risk commodities: cattle, oil palm, soy, rubber, cocoa, coffee, and timber. The model uses time series of satellite images as primary input, complemented by two additional data modalities: geographic coordinates and national statistics on the production of forest-risk commodities. Deforestation drivers are strongly clustered in space, and therefore providing the model a notion of location and regional trends can improve its performance in cases where satellite imagery alone is not enough.

Figure caption: The deep learning model architecture proposed in the study

When evaluated on a held-out dataset sampled across the tropics, the model achieves 87% accuracy across all classes, with the additional modalities bringing a 10% improvement. An analysis of the model’s behaviour shows that it uses the additional modalities to recognize classes strongly associated with spatial patterns, such as palm oil or rubber. To recognize drivers that can be found anywhere in the tropics, such as mining, the model mostly relies on the satellite imagery. The dataset used to train the model, compiled from free and public sources, is made available online [4].

The study provides an automatic, scalable and repeatable method to attribute deforestation to specific drivers. Independent of national governments and other stakeholders, it can support a wide range of use cases with objective data. For example, it can be used to detect areas where forest-risk commodities are produced on recently deforested land, indicating non-compliance with regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation. It can also improve the quantification of carbon emissions from deforestation, which depend on the specific land use that follows deforestation [5]. Overall, it demonstrates how modern machine learning can support evidence-based actions to conserve and protect tropical forests.

[1] Pendrill, Florence, et al. “Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation.” Science 377.6611 (2022): eabm9267.

[2] Singh, Chandrakant, and U. Martin Persson. “Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions.” (2024).

[3] Pišl, Jan, et al. “Mapping land uses following tropical deforestation with location-aware deep learning.” ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 232 (2026): 578-593.

[4] Pišl, Jan, et al. “Post-deforestation Land Use in the Tropics (PLUTo).” Version 2, Zenodo, 2025, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17831353.

[5] Don, Axel, Jens Schumacher, and Annette Freibauer. “Impact of tropical land‐use change on soil organic carbon stocks–a meta‐analysis.” Global Change Biology 17.4 (2011): 1658-1670.

A difficult task – balancing food production and biodiversity

It is well understood that the oil palm industry has had profound ecological, social and economic impacts across the world. Land clearing has reduced wildlife habitats, led to biodiversity loss, and contributed to outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. At the same time, the oil palm industry is integral for supporting local farmer’s livelihoods and is crucial to the economy of many countries.

Oil palm trees are highly versatile, producing both palm oil from the fruit and palm kernel oil for uses ranging from food and biodiesel to cosmetics and industrial products, making oil palm the most land-efficient oil crop. Balancing food production and biodiversity conservation requires managing agricultural landscapes to serve both goals.

To support this, a team of researchers from UniSC in Australia, and Wild Asia, a Malaysian-based not-for-profit, examined how animal distribution in an oil palm plantation is influenced by both habitat features on the ground, and the surrounding landscape.

Our research

To understand how agricultural production can be sustained while promoting biodiversity, we studied animal distributions across an active oil palm plantation in Johor, Malaysia, a region projected to see continued agricultural growth. We used acoustic recorders called Audiomoths (attached to the tree in the picture below) to record the vocalising species (e.g. frogs, toads, birds, mammals) on the plantation during dawn and dusk.

We analysed over 280 hours of recordings from 35 blocks across the planation, detecting 75 birds, 12 amphibians (frogs and toads), and two mammals, including several threatened species. We then combined this acoustic data with information on the surrounding landscape, on-the-ground habitat features, and oil palm yields.

We found that species richness (the number of species in a location) was highest in plantation blocks with taller trees, lower levels of frond stacking (stacking dead palm fronds under trees as a natural fertiliser), and at blocks closer to water sources and disturbed forests. Disturbed forests included abandoned plantations that had been passively restored, or areas of natural land altered by human activity, such as selective logging. Our results suggested that over the duration of this study, birds, including fruit eating birds, did not have an observable impact on yield.

Recommendations for planation managers

Based on our findings, here are key recommendations for oil palm plantations that aim to enhance the biodiversity of amphibian, bird and mammal species.

1. Promote connectivity with disturbed or restored forests. Due to the nature of oil palm farming, blocks may be left abandoned due to them having low yields and being difficult to maintain. Plantations should endeavour to restore these abandoned blocks by planting a range of native tree species with varied heights and canopy cover to help enhance biodiversity.
2. Conserve tall remnant trees and plant additional tall trees.Since it is not realistic to increase the height of the oil palm trees themselves, conserving existing tall trees and introducing native tall trees can provide valuable habitat. Additionally, as trees take years to grow tall, platforms or “tree islands” (as discussed by Tohiran et al., 2024) can also be installed.
3. Protect water bodies. Rivers, swamps, ponds, and drainage trenches are vital for many species. Keeping these areas clean and free from rubbish, sediment, fertiliser, and pesticide runoff helps reduce harm to non-target species, maintain biodiversity, and preserve ecosystem function.
4. Limit frond stacking. Keeping frond stacking to under 50% of the ground cover within blocks ensures open areas remain, supporting both agricultural and environmental benefits.

More information:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-026-03259-2

[Feature Image by Wild Asia team member Khoo M. S. (konexer.org/khooms)]

When we think about colonialism, we often imagine it as a closed chapter—something that ended in 1945. But in Indonesia’s countryside, especially in areas dominated by palm oil plantations, colonial rule is not a distant memory. It is embedded in the law itself.

This became clear to me while researching land conflicts between palm oil companies and rural communities across Indonesia. As I tried to show in the documentary Colonial Debris, what appear to be contemporary disputes over development and investment turn out to be something deeper: the afterlife of a colonial legal system designed not to protect citizens, but to control them and extract their resources.

That insight matters well beyond academia. It helps explain why palm oil expansion causes so many conflicts why they so often turn violent, and why they are so difficult to resolve.

Law built for extraction

Dutch colonial law in Indonesia was never intended to serve the indigenous population. It was designed to secure land, labor, and natural resources for colonial profit while suppressing resistance. Courts, police, and administrative rules worked together to ensure plantations could operate cheaply and smoothly—even if this meant dispossessing communities or criminalizing protest.

One colonial provision is especially important: the domain declaration of 1870. It stated that all land not held under proven ownership belonged to the state. In practice, this erased customary land rights and allowed the colonial government to hand vast areas to plantation companies at minimal cost. Tobacco, sugar, tea, and later palm oil plantations expanded rapidly under this legal cover.

Indonesia gained independence, but it never fully dismantled this legal architecture. Instead, much of it was inherited and repurposed in the postcolonial era.

Palm oil conflicts everywhere

Today, Indonesia is the world’s largest palm oil producer. Alongside that growth has come a staggering number of land conflicts. NGOs have documented thousands of disputes between companies and communities over the past decade alone. These conflicts are not marginal or exceptional—they are structural.

In a collaborative research project and our book Rightless Resistance, my colleagues and I documented 150 palm oil conflicts across four provinces: Riau, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and West Sumatra. The patterns were strikingly similar everywhere.

Most conflicts began with land acquisition. Communities reported losing land without meaningful consent or fair compensation. Others revolved around broken promises of profit-sharing schemes, known as plasma, which are supposed to give communities a stake in plantations built on their land. On paper these schemes appear generous; in practice they often produce tiny, opaque payouts after years of waiting.

What communities experienced was not simply bad corporate behavior. It was legal vulnerability—what we came to describe as rightlessness. People technically had rights, but those rights were so weak, poorly enforced, and easily bypassed that they offered little real protection.

Colonial debris in modern law

This rightlessness has deep historical roots. Indonesia’s constitution and land laws formally recognize citizens’ rights, but they also give the state sweeping control over land. Today, around 63 percent of Indonesia’s territory is classified as state forest estate. Much of this land is not forest in any ecological sense; it is an administrative category that prevents private or communal ownership.

The consequence is paradoxical. Rural Indonesians struggle to obtain legal titles to land they have lived on for generations, while companies can gain control over that same land through state-issued concessions. Once a concession is granted, companies acquire strong legal backing—even if communities are displaced in the process.

This system closely mirrors the colonial logic of the domain declaration. It is colonial debris: an old legal idea that continues to structure present-day injustice.

Why conflicts rarely end well

One might expect courts, mediation, or government intervention to resolve these disputes. In practice, they rarely do. In our study, nearly 70 percent of conflicts ended with communities achieving little or nothing. Many dragged on for a decade or more. Even when companies violated regulations, sanctions were rare, while arrests of protesters were common.

A key reason is collusion between business and state authorities. Palm oil companies are deeply entangled with political elites. Politicians sit on company boards, own plantations, or rely on industry funding for election campaigns. At the local level, companies routinely provide informal payments to officials, police, and military units.

This collusion has concrete effects. Authorities tend to side with companies during conflicts. Police are deployed to suppress protests, and community leaders are criminalized—sometimes on flimsy or fabricated charges. Here again, the colonial past matters. Laws used today to criminalize plantation protests can be traced back to colonial-era regulations designed to discipline plantation laborers. The logic is unchanged: disrupting plantation operations is treated as a crime, while dispossession is treated as development.

A colonial mindset that endures

Colonial legacies are not only legal; they are also ideological. During our fieldwork, officials often justified siding with companies by portraying villagers as backward or unproductive, while companies were framed as engines of development.

This narrative echoes a colonial mindset: the idea that “natives” are lazy and need outside capital to make land productive. It is a myth—and a damaging one. Research increasingly shows that smallholder agriculture can generate broader local benefits than large plantations, whose profits often flow out of the region. Yet the myth persists because it serves powerful interests, legitimizing dispossession and the concentration of land in elite hands.

Decolonization unfinished

Indonesia recently replaced its colonial-era criminal code with a new KUHP, a move presented as legal decolonization. But replacing old laws is not enough. Colonialism survives not only in statutes, but in how law is structured, interpreted, and enforced. As long as the state maintains outsized control over land, treats protest as a threat, and aligns itself with corporate interests over citizen rights, colonial patterns will endure.

The uncomfortable truth is that Indonesia’s political and economic elites benefit from these arrangements. Like their colonial predecessors, they profit from controlling land and allocating concessions. That is why reform has been slow.

Land conflicts are not just local disputes; they are symptoms of a deeper problem in Indonesia’s democracy and legal system. A state that cannot protect its citizens’ land rights, but readily protecting corporate claims, undermines its own legitimacy.

Decolonizing law means confronting this history honestly. It requires dismantling legal doctrines that prioritize extraction over justice, reforming land governance, and abandoning colonial assumptions about who deserves rights and who does not. Academics, journalists, and civil society all have a role to play in making these legacies visible, because political will rarely emerges on its own—especially when powerful actors benefit from the status quo.

Colonialism did not end in Indonesia when the Dutch left. It lingered in laws, institutions, and ideas. Until those are addressed, independence remains incomplete.

Prof. Dr. Ward Berenschot is professor of Political Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Together with Watchdoc he produced a documentary on palm oil conflicts, which can be watched on Youtube. In Indonesian: Tanah Moyangku

The book Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia will be published by Cornell University Press in May 2026.

The world is facing a biodiversity crisis, and we can no longer afford to invest in ineffective conservation strategies.

Between 1999 and 2019, approximately USD 1 billion was invested in orangutan conservation. One might expect that their remaining distribution, population size, and trends would now be well understood.

Surprisingly, major knowledge gaps persist. Orangutans are inherently difficult to count: their densities are low, making direct surveys logistically challenging, and indirect methods, such as nest counts, often yield wide confidence intervals.

Optimising conservation requires a lot of data, yet such data are difficult to obtain using traditional, time-bound biodiversity monitoring approaches. Although widely used, these conventional approaches cannot deliver real-time metrics — a critical limitation when wildlife populations and their threats are changing rapidly.

KehatiKu: A Community-Driven Model for Outcome-based Conservation

Borneo Futures’ citizen science programme, KehatiKu, offers an alternative by working with the communities who live alongside orangutans and other wildlife. In Indonesian Borneo, Borneo Futures is among the first to generate near real-time updates on wildlife status in tropical forests, a necessity for outcome-based conservation.

Traditional biodiversity monitoring is often expert-driven and slow to respond to ecological change. By engaging people who encounter wildlife in their daily lives, continuous population data can be generated by those who know the environment best, while simultaneously creating direct financial incentives for conservation.

Through the KehatiKu programme, Borneo Futures collaborates with local communities who receive payments for verified wildlife observations. This creates a positive feedback loop: individuals receive immediate rewards for documenting wildlife, strengthening incentives to protect rather than exploit the rainforest, while contributing to an expanding dataset that supports evidence-based investment and adaptive management.

Real-Time Data for Adaptive Conservation

Between April and October 2025, nearly 500 community members from four remote villages submitted more than 70,000 verified wildlife observations. This dataset enables statistically robust estimates of wildlife occupancy. Occupancy is the likelihood of a species occurring in a particular site.

The programme’s wildlife index integrates occupancy data for eight species, weighted by IUCN Red List status, CITES listings, Indonesian legal protection, and species range. Together, these metrics provide a transparent and actionable snapshot of conservation status designed to guide adaptive management and targeted investment.

Opportunistic wildlife encounters are recorded through a mobile phone application and feed into a growing database of occupancy metrics. Within fewer than eight months of programme implementation, sufficient data had been collected to support statistical occupancy analyses.

Borneo Futures has now released the first wildlife index from the KehatiKu programme — a milestone for outcome-based conservation in tropical forests.

Recent analysis estimates mean orangutan occupancy at 0.42 (SE = 0.05) across 522 1 × 1 km grid cells. This estimate is based on 129 confirmed orangutan sightings, alongside 12,858 observations of other wildlife used to generate non-detections. Clear relationships are observed between orangutan occupancy, forest proximity, and elevation. Some drivers are likely ecological, while others reflect historical pressures.

In collaboration with partner organisations, Wildlife Futures and The Arcus Foundation, Borneo Futures aims to stabilise and ultimately increase orangutan populations — a long-term effort given the species’ slow reproductive rate.

Achieving this depends on strong support from local communities, who increasingly recognise orangutans as a valuable asset worth protecting and are empowered to reject developments that convert orangutan habitat.

[The images in this article were all taken by KehatiKu citizen scientists.]

Birth of the Rimba

Sometime during 2019, I was listening to the radio. I have no idea what the program was or who the speakers were, but there was a feature about deforestation and the Dr Seuss book, The Lorax, was referenced.

I had never read it, but it prompted me to buy a copy.

As I read it, I realised that its strong message also resonated with the destruction of rainforests because of palm oil. Of course, rainforests are destroyed for other things as well, but it was palm oil I was focussing on, in helping Newquay Zoo to become a Sustainable Palm Oil Community; following in the footsteps of Chester Zoo.

The easy rhymes of The Lorax and its lyrical timbre lend itself well to children as well as adults and it gave me food for thought.

Using it as my inspiration, I wove a story around an elderly female orangutan becoming the spiritual guardian of the rainforest – a mystical protective being that teaches, advises and cares.

Michelle Desilets of Orangutan Land Trust was also a source of inspiration, helping to not only name The Rimba, but also advising on content , as well as helping with the editing and Mark Harrison from Borneo Nature Foundation told me about a wonderful artist and orangutan researcher,  Emma Lokuciejewski. After a couple of phone calls, she was in and the beautiful artwork of The Rimba was created.

Neither of us wanted any profits from the book, determined that any proceeds should go to orangutan conservation, however getting it published proved difficult and for a long while the Rimba stayed on the back burner.

Fast forward to 2025 and a determined Emma decided that we were going to self publish. Thanks to her, we now have ‘The Rimba’ published. Sir David Attenborough has a copy and the book is already beginning to raise funds for orangutans.

Several people have said they want to use it to teach their children more – so the message about sustainable palm oil is spreading. Barnaby Patchett – One Nine Nine – kindly reviewed the book and wrote: “ The very existence of the book, reflects the changing nature of the palm oil conversation – I simply can’t imagine something like this being released 5 years ago”.

He’s right.  In 2018 when Greenpeace showed their Ran Tan advert, it was all about the devastation palm oil caused; the retail store, Iceland, vowed to remove all palm oil from its products and, as a consumer, it made me want to avoid it all together too.  Iceland was unable to keep its pledge and after a lot of research I realised that a boycott was not only a knee-jerk reaction, it was a damaging one too.  Palm oil is not a bad oil, but the way it is grown and produced can be.  It is a high yielding oil, far better than many other oils that if grown as an alternative, would cause more deforestation, not less.

Consumers play an important part in helping to drive change; and this is the underlying message of ‘The Rimba.”  By choosing sustainable palm oil and making informed choices, we are showing that the solution is not to boycott, but simply to use wisely, ask questions and choose better.  It is the most effective way of protecting rainforests, wildlife and livelihoods.

Find out more about The Rimba, download free educational materials and purchase the book HERE.

100% of profits support orangutan conservation.

The Chester Zoo Sustainable Palm Oil Communities project relies on organisations stepping forward and taking responsibility for transparency, whilst maintaining their ambition to improve sustainability in supply chains. That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome two influential UK food businesses, KTC Edibles and The Compleat Food Group, as our newest Sustainable Palm Oil Ambassadors.

Together, these companies cover a huge stretch of the UK food system. From the edible oils supplying manufacturers nationwide, to some of the household brands people choose in their supermarket shop each week, their commitment to sourcing deforestation-free sustainable palm oil has the power to create a ripple through supply chains in a truly meaningful way.

Chester Zoo’s work on sustainable palm oil began in 2012, heavily shaped by over two decades of partnership with field partner HUTAN in Malaysian Borneo. This collaboration continues to give us an honest view of the realities on the ground, and to see firsthand that palm oil itself is not the problem. This land-efficient vegetable oil crop has a much greater yield per hectare than alternatives and replacing it with other oils doesn’t remove environmental pressure, it simply shifts that pressure to other regions with equally important ecosystems.

That’s why leadership from businesses matters so much. Choosing sustainable palm oil instead of opting out of a complex system is what helps to improve it. By becoming ambassadors, KTC and The Compleat Food Group are helping to champion an approach that recognises these complexities and pushes for better standards, not a boycott.

And their commitments go beyond internal sourcing policies: as ambassadors, they will help promote accurate, transparent information to their customers and wider industry networks, empowering people to understand why sustainable palm oil matters for rainforest protection, and why responsible procurement is such a powerful tool for change.

These two companies, and our other SPO Ambassadors, are united by a shared message that cuts through the noise. The more voices we have reinforcing the same evidence-led message, the closer we come to moulding supply chains into something that genuinely protects forests.

To learn more about the Sustainable Palm Oil Ambassadors programme, visit www.chesterzoo.org/SPOAmbassadors or get in touch with our sustainable palm oil team at spocity@chesterzoo.org.

Misinformation is rife in our digital world; sometimes it’s harmless, other times it can have negative consequences for efforts that matter. Such is the concern of Meijaard et al. who newly submitted a review to preprint that highlights the fundamental methodological oversight of a recent scientific publication, the conclusions of which suggest that RSPO certification reduces the efficiency of oil palm plantations.

The original study by Nina Zachlod and colleagues investigated whether certification had unintended consequences for Malaysian palm oil, using socioeconomic indices and satellite imagery, finding that activities conducted to gain certification, as well as those of certified estates, led to overall reduced production efficiency. The authors, therefore, called on the RSPO to revise their standards to account for unintended consequences.

While calling for such revisions could result in a major overhaul of RSPO practices and put a question mark against any existing certification, the greater concern is that the publication of this paper, could harm the credibility of the RSPO and discourage further estates and companies from seeking certification.

This concern is amplified by the findings of Meijaard et al., whose new analysis directly contradicts the conclusions of the original study. Their review uncovered that the core claim, that RSPO-certified plantations experience declining efficiency, rests on a misinterpretation of basic agricultural processes. Specifically, Zachlod et al. had interpreted decreases in canopy cover as evidence of lower productivity. However, Meijaard and colleagues demonstrate that these declines simply reflect routine oil palm replanting, a standard practice carried out every 20–30 years. When older palms are removed and replaced, temporary canopy loss is expected, not indicative of management failures or certification burdens.

Figure 1. Oil palm replanting in progress in a plantation on Belitung Island, Indonesia. Photo by Erik Meijaard

Drawing on data from nearly 94,000 hectares across 102 plantations, Meijaard et al. found that around one-third of the studied area underwent replanting between 2018 and 2023, meaning the very signal Zachlod et al. used to infer inefficiency was actually unrelated to certification. Their analysis also highlights further methodological issues: the lack of appropriate control areas, misapplied statistical models, omission of uncertainty estimates, and the unjustified leap from local observations to global claims.

Figure 2. Comparison of land-cover classification results for a Wilmar plantation certified in 2023. The top row shows results from this study for 2018–2023. Purple indicates bare land, green indicates oil palm, and yellow highlights oil palm replanted on bare land identified in previous years. The bottom row shows the corresponding results from Zachlod et al. (taken from their Figure 4) for 2018, 2020, and 2023.

These errors are not trivial. The original study attracted media coverage, with some headlines implying that sustainability certification harms productivity. Reduced productivity could mean a need for more land to grow oil crops, and the risk of deforestation. Such narratives could discourage companies from pursuing RSPO certification, undermining both market incentives and global sustainability goals. As Meijaard et al. stress, rigorous, context-aware research is crucial when studies have the power to influence public opinion and policy.

By clarifying how methodological oversights led to misleading conclusions, the new analysis serves as a reminder that responsible science is essential, especially when the stakes extend far beyond academia.

A new publication, freely available in pdf, shows how oil palm landscapes can contribute to wildlife conservation. ‘Wildlife Conservation in the Oil Palm Landscape’ is produced by a small, specialist NGO (BORA, www.bringingbackourrareanimals.org) that has long experience with wildlife management in Malaysia and is walking the talk with orangutans, elephants and wild cattle in the oil palm landscape of eastern Sabah, Borneo.

‘Oil Palm Landscape’ refers to large areas where most of the land cover is oil palm plantation, with some villages and residual forest patches. High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, riparian zones, wetlands, steep slopes and forest edge buffer zones can all be characterized as ‘Set-aside’ lands – different names and origins but all uncultivated lands within oil palm monocultures.

Protected forest area (top), a fifty-metre ‘buffer zone’ of abandoned old oil palms (middle) and young, productive oil palms (bottom) in eastern Sabah, Malaysia

‘Set-aside’ lands within the oil palm landscape have little value unless they are actively managed with targets in mind. This is because they are too small and scattered to support viable populations of most wild species that we find there now. Most wild species now included in ‘biodiversity’ lists in oil palm plantations will drift to extinction, leaving a few, very common, robust animal and plant species. Thus, the prevailing passive approach of protecting and monitoring ‘set-aside’ lands, and planting trees ad hoc in a few places, will result in the gradual loss of most species from those habitats, while a few robust species become more common.

What is really needed is a fresh look, with the aim of helping to manage species that are both either rare or problematical (or both), by actively managing and enriching whatever forest reserves and ‘set-asides’ now exist in the landscape that has been created by humans.

This booklet provides a series of descriptions and analyses, a conceptual background, and recommendations for implementable actions, based on the experience of BORA since 2019.

4.5-year-old Ficus trees planted by BORA from marcots in a riparian zone with retained old palms

4.5-year-old planted Ficus annulata, an orangutan food plant on a riparian zone in a SD Guthrie estate

There are costs involved in active enrichment and management of set-asides. This is the main reason little such effort has been made to date. However, in relation to the overall costs involved in maintaining ‘sustainability’ work, in developing and implementing the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework to assess an organization’s business practices, and in marketing Malaysian palm oil as sustainable, the costs involved in conducting work outlined in this booklet will be trivial.

It is proposed that Malaysia adopt two flagship wildlife species whereby the Malaysian palm oil industry can tell the world that it is actively helping to support their conservation: orangutans and elephants.

Male orangutan feeds in Ficus albipila fruits in a riparian zone

One or more of the big oil palm growers could start a targeted set-aside management programme at any time. The potential competitive advantage to be gained by any company or institution being a ‘first mover’ has not been realized. In the absence of a ‘first mover’ amongst either palm oil growers, or traders, or mainstream NGOs involved in support for the palm oil industry, it will be up to government policy to set the ball rolling.

“Wildlife Conservation in the Oil Palm Landscape” is authored by Dr John Payne, Dr Zainal Zahari Zainuddin and Mellinda Jenuit. Download your copy from this link.

For years, the public conversation around palm oil was stuck in a simple loop: palm oil is bad.

The narrative is simple, emotionally driven and incredibly enduring! Powerful images of the devastating loss of wildlife habitats across Indonesia and Malaysia, despondent orangutans, and monoculture crops where virgin rainforest once stood were all the proof that was needed to cement this view in the media and the minds of consumers.

The huge progress made on improving the sustainability of palm oil over the decades did little, if anything, to change the narrative until very recently.

Today, that is changing – and over the past couple of years, we’re starting to see some much-needed nuance enter the discussion. The conversation is maturing, as many begin to understand the importance of sustainably sourced, segregated and certified palm oil, the complexity of global commodity supply chains and the growing raft of legislation designed to protect rainforest habitats across the world.

Crucially, the industry and increasingly the public have recognised that sustainability, rather than boycotts are the key to pushing the conversation forward.

The Start of the Conversation

The sustainable palm oil movement isn’t new – but efforts to communicate the benefits of sustainable palm have been much less successful than the positive changes made by the industry over the past two decades.

This is despite the fact that the narrative has remained fairly constant for 20 years!

The rationale behind the core message has always been sound. Palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil in the world, supplying 35% of the world’s vegetable oil supply from just 10% of the global land dedicated to oil crops.

(Image credit: IUCN)

Implementing sustainable practices means we can benefit from the efficiency and versatility of palm, while minimising the negative impact on people and planet. Not choosing palm oil means choosing another oil, and the impact could be significantly worse. The most sustainable alternative to palm oil is sustainable palm.

Reticence to Get Involved

So why didn’t the message cut through?

We’ve already touched on one of the challenges – the anti palm narrative was already set, and backed up by evocative images of destroyed landscapes and displaced, despondent wildlife. This narrative was based in reality – historically, the expansion of palm oil was responsible for all these problems, and to this day, rainforests are being cleared for oil palm.

Trying to challenge this narrative while the industry was still involved in widespread deforestation was always going to fail.

At the same time, even those making progress were reluctant to challenge the narrative. Many major players in the industry stayed fairly quiet. They were happier to keep their heads down and remain under the radar, rather than risk communicating about their imperfect though tangible progress – knowing how strong the anti-palm narrative was.

There have been, of course, efforts from some to talk about the progress being made. The RSPO, and other major industry players such as AAK, Daabon Group and KTC Edibles in the UK acted as a vanguard for the message. NGOs like the WWF also led the charge to inject some nuance into the conversation.

Fats are complex, both in chemistry and in public discourse. For decades, “fat” has carried negative connotations, fuelling widespread fear about its role in our diets. While excessive fat consumption is associated with obesity and other health concerns, fats remain an essential part of a balanced diet. They support hormone regulation, vitamin absorption, and cell integrity, while also enhancing the taste and texture of food, and providing a concentrated source of energy.

A recent publication by Slavin, Meijaard, and Sheil (2025) in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems explores these issues in depth, examining both the nutritional science behind fats and the oversimplification that often shapes public messaging. The authors highlight how certain fat sources, particularly vegetable oils, have become vilified, sometimes more for the environmental impacts of their production than for their nutritional qualities. The paper aims to reframe the discussion, recognizing that the “fats debate” spans far beyond health and environment alone, it also encompasses cultural, culinary, and economic dimensions. Reconciling these interconnected perspectives is essential to crafting balanced and effective policy.

The authors argue that interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial to navigate this complexity. Current challenges, such as conflicting dietary advice or selective scrutiny of specific oil crops, cannot be addressed through single-discipline perspectives or by focusing narrowly on individual nutrients. Instead, progress depends on integrating insights from nutrition, agronomy, conservation, and economics to form a more objective understanding. This holistic approach helps reduce the distortion that arises when studies or narratives are driven by selective evidence or underlying bias.

Such collaboration is especially important for policymakers, who face the task of balancing dietary guidance with environmental and social priorities. For example, implementing global dietary models such as the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet could inadvertently increase pressure on biodiversity and contribute to climate change if low-yield oil crops are prioritized over high-efficiency ones, such as oil palm. The authors emphasize that sound science and cooperation across disciplines are key to identifying strategies that align crop production with ecosystem protection, human health, and community needs.

To achieve a more nuanced understanding of fats and oils, the paper calls for greater interdisciplinary collaboration, sustained investment in long-term comparative studies, and the development of standardized methods for assessing both health and environmental outcomes. Applying frameworks such as GRADE for health evidence and lifecycle assessments for environmental impacts can help establish a shared foundation for decision-making.

Ultimately, progress in this field depends more on collaboration than conflict. Bridging divides between producers and consumers requires shared understanding rather than polarized debate. As the authors note, no crop is inherently “good” or “bad”; impacts depend on how, where, and by whom these crops are produced.

By integrating diverse perspectives, we can design food systems that support diets which are nutritionally adequate, culturally relevant, and environmentally responsible. In this vision, fats and oils are not enemies to health or sustainability but vital components of a more informed, equitable, and balanced global food future.

[Top photo: Despite their reputation as products of mass consumption, vegetable oils are also integral to subsistence production systems and embody rich cultural, culinary and nutritional significance.]