Observed and modeled effects of expanding oil palm plantations on land cover and carbon flux in West Kalimantan, Indonesia from 1989-2020

Kimberly M. Carlson, Yale University, kimberly.carlson@yale.edu
Lisa M. Curran, Stanford University, lmcurran@stanford.edu (Presenter)
Dessy Ratnasari, Living Landscapes Indonesia, dessy.rasel@gmail.com
Alice McDonald Pittman, Stanford University, alice.mcdonald@gmail.com
Britaldo S. Soares-Filho, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, britaldo@csr.ufmg.br
Gregory Asner, Carnegie Institution, gpa@stanford.edu
Simon N. Trigg, n/a, sntrigg@gmail.com
David L. A. Gaveau, Stanford University, dgaveau@yahoo.co.uk
Hermann O. Rodrigues, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, hermann@csr.ufmg.br
Deborah Lawrence, University of Virginia, dl3c@virginia.edu

Oil palm plantations have proliferated across Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) since the 1990s. Rapidly changing land allocation policies, commodities markets, and agribusiness practices require assessments of oil palm expansion impacts on land cover and carbon emissions. Using a timeseries of classified Landsat satellite images (1989-2008) coupled with spatially-explicit land cover change modeling (2009-2020), we evaluated the dynamics of plantation expansion in Ketapang District, West Kalimantan. From 1989-2008 oil palm plantations expanded to occupy 5% of the 12,000 km² study region. Throughout the 1990s, plantation development primarily replaced intact, logged, and re-growing logged forests (91% of converted area). Yet since 2001, expansion favored community-managed agroforests and agricultural fallows (55%). During the 2008 palm oil price peak we observed the highest plantation clearing rates (251 km² yr^-1), as well as a shift in preference for peatlands (54%) over mineral soils. We projected several spatially-explicit scenarios of oil palm development through 2020 using Dinamica EGO. Under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) plantation expansion scenario, oil palm occupied 32% of the region (41% of non-protected areas) by 2020, generating 26% of the total 11.9M tC yr^-1 emissions. Prohibiting oil palm from expanding into intact forests and peatlands reduced emissions only 3% below BAU, because land cover change dynamics not directly attributable to oil palm expansion (e.g., fires, logging) produced 82% of emissions. Protecting forested lands, including logged and re-growing logged forests, reduced emissions by 21%, yet oil palm area was reduced 23% compared to BAU. Peatland draining and burning is projected to contribute >75% of net carbon emissions through 2020. If plantation expansion continues converting agroforestry systems, local farmers’ land use and livelihoods will be altered in diverse, unforeseen ways. The benefits of carbon emissions mitigation at global and regional scales must be weighed against potential costs for resident agrarian communities at local scales.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Global Change Impact & Vulnerability   (Tue 11:30 AM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Curran, Lisa: Socio-economic and political drivers of oil palm expansion in Indonesia: Effects on rural livelihoods, carbon emissions and REDD ...details

Poster Location ID: 150