Research Question: Impact of palm oil production on deforestation and land use

Palm oil is harmful to the environment. Production of palm has many consequences,
affecting the world's most biodiverse forests. Producing palm oil is one of the major drivers
of deforestation. 

Abstract
This report reviews environmental, social and economic aspects of palm oil
production, and it’s impacts on deforestation and land use.

There is significant evidence that the expansion of producing palm oil has resulted in
deforestation, biodiversity loss, and net greenhouse gas emissions. In certain cases,
palm oil has spread across territory that was formerly utilised by indigenous and local
communities. Labour abuses, including child and forced labour, are frequently
reported, but research on how widespread such practises are remains limited.

Oil palm agriculture frequently generates a higher income for smallholders than other
livelihoods, and hence helps to the growth of rural economies and the entire
economy of producing countries through its relations. These economic benefits must
be balanced against the risk of conflict and the loss of environmental benefits such
as non-timber forest products.

Despite the fact that the majority of palm oil producer nations have implemented
environmental and social standards, enforcement is frequently partial, insufficient, or
inefficient.
 Introduction 
Palm oil is an important commodity for the globe because it is a raw material for
many vital items, including cooking oils, cosmetics, and foods. Furthermore, palm oil
has been discovered to be a source of renewable energy, such as biodiesel and
biogas. As a result, demand for palm oil is expected to rise in the future. It is certain
that palm oil production would rise in order to meet this demand. One significant
procedure for producing palm oil is the crude palm oil process. This process
generates revenue for the countries and citizens of countries where crude palm oil is
produced, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Despite these positive effects,
the environmental drawbacks of the crude palm oil process, such as greenhouse gas
emissions, waste, high water, and energy consumption, have been found. Thus, a
number of standards, including the Indonesia sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) and
Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), are introduced to maintain sustainability
in the production of palm oil. One of the key requirements of these standards is to
track the long-term effects of crude palm oil production.

The leader of the most sustainably produced palm oil is Europe, on top of that
progress on the growing number of voluntary initiatives and commitments has been
slow. Sustainable palm oil has a low adoption rate in India and China.

Palm oil is used in countless products, including ice cream, oat milk, shampoo,
lipstick, ramen noodles, and has uses in hundreds of other products. It frequently
appears on labels as one of dozens of variants, such as sodium lauryl sulphate,
rather than as palm oil. More than 70 million metric tons are used globally each year.
 Planning
Planning 
The data which is to be referred and analyzed is going to be in time range of 2000 -
2013, because this were the years in which the rate of production and usage of palm oil
increased the most. Years 2006 – 2013 were used to identify the most impacts palm oil
production had on deforestation and land usage.

Procedure 
1. Collecting the data the of production and consumption of palm oil in Indonesia
2. Obtaining the data of the amount of Palm oil was exported and imported in
Indonesia
3. Obtaining the data of imports in other big nations from the year 2006-2013
4. Making a pie chart comparing the number of consumptions by the household, the
final consumption expenditure by government, and the Gross fixed capital
formation. Compared to the Palm kernel oil. Where inner part of the pie chart - in
Green is the consumption by Palm kernel oil in Indonesia from the year 2013.
The outer part of the pie chart in – Blue is the consumption by Palm oil in
Indonesia from the year 2013.
5. Making a table about the top 10 nations that contribute most to the Indonesian PF
6. Using the table above, learning the trends in the palm oil footprints that were
causing harm to deforestation, and land usage
7. Using the trends, to identify the consequences of the production of palm oil.

Variables 

Independent How is the variable independent?

The production of When there is more usage of palm oil, hence more production of palm oil, is
Palm Oils causing harm to land, and it is causing the increase in deforestation.

Dependent Variable  How is the variable dependent?

Deforestation The ultimate factor that causes deforestation by palm oil is the large amount
of carbon, that causes the loss of rainforests. This destroys the rich
biodiverse habitats. Large expanses of forests are burned down to produce
palm oil since it is the most cost effective method. According to experts, this
makes the issue even worse. Smoke from clear cutting forests frequently
contributes significantly to the excess spread of carbon emissions in the
atmosphere.

Controlled Variable  How is the variable controlled? 

1. Location: As the data collected will be measured withinside the geographical boundary
 Indonesia of Indonesia and not out of that.

2. Time Range: The data collected will be from FAOSTAT, data posted is from 1986 – 2013,
2000 - 2013 but this report will only be analysing the years 2000 - 2013

3. Imports of
palm oil in The imports will be analysed as the amount of trade information that is
Indonesia available for imports is higher than the information of exports.
Figure 1

Composition of the Indonesian palm oil footprint in 2013.

The outer blue layer of the graph demonstrates that household consumption contributed
most to global final demands and made up 67% of Indonesia's total PF in 2013. Gross fixed
capital formation, which accounted for 22% of the total Indonesian PF, was the second-
largest contributor. The contribution of household consumption declined by 8.6% in
comparison to 2000, the first year of investigation, while gross fixed capital creation climbed
by 7.7%, suggesting that the use of palm oil is gradually becoming more significant for
infrastructure. Government (7.2%) was the third-largest donor, followed by changes in
inventories and assets (5.8%) and non-profit organisations that provide services to
households (0.2%).
Figure 2: Table of total amount of palm oil footprints from Indonesia. In each year 2000-2013

Figure 2 lists the top 10 countries that give the most to the Indonesian PF . These countries'
contributions to the Indonesian PF did not change significantly between 2000 and 2013, and
India and China remained two of the top donors. Between 2000 and 2013, the amount of
Indonesian PF caused by China and India was predicted to be between 0.60 and 3.8 Mt/yr
and between 1.7 and 5.2 Mt/yr, respectively. As a result, China's contribution to the PF
increased at a rate that was more than twice as fast as India's. Indonesia (1.0 Mt/yr) has the
second-highest PF in 2000. The third-largest PF in 2013 belonged to Indonesia as a result of
rising domestic consumption. In 2000, the US was the third-largest donor to the Indonesian
PF, while in 2013, it was the fourth-largest donor after Indonesia. Germany (0.99 Mt/yr), Italy
(0.85 Mt/yr), Japan (0.69 Mt/yr), Russia (0.67 Mt/yr), Brazil (0.65 Mt/yr), and Spain (0.60
Mt/yr) were further contributors to Indonesian PF in 2013. Importantly, most nations’ PF
exceeded their palm oil import from Indonesia. For instance, Japan imported 0.13 Mt of
Indonesian palm oil annually in 2013, less than the top ten importers, However, Japan's PF
was the sixth largest, more than five times higher than its import of palm oil and PF
combined. In fact, the PF of 38 of the 43 countries and the ROW exceeded their imports,
showing that the majority of countries heavily rely on concealed palm oil consumed through
global supply chains. India, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and ROW are the exceptions;
these countries are regarded as centres for goods related to Indonesian palm oil.
Figure 3: Trends In the palm oil footprints, daily consumption by households

Figure 2 depicts the per-capita Indonesian PF caused by household consumption across

Due to their populations being more than five times larger than Indonesia's, other countries
with high national PFs, such China and India, had very low per-capita PFs. In other words,
even when the downstream consumption outside of Indonesia is taken into account,
domestic consumption of palm oil plays a significant role in Indonesian households,
particularly in terms of food demand.
Figure 3: Contributions to land use in Indonesia by the nation due to the increase of
production in Palm oil

Nearly 86–88% of the LUC footprints over the decade were caused by ultimate consumption
outside of Indonesia. About half of the total LUC across the two periods, excluding
Indonesia, came from the top 10 countries' consumption On the one hand, the countries with
the first through fourth and seventh greatest LUC footprints between the two periods were
still India, China, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Japan and the
Netherlands, on the other hand, saw a decline in their rankings, going from fifth and sixth to
sixth and tenth, respectively.
In conclusion,