It was not deforestation that prompted some oil palm smallholding plantations in South Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract

While the palm oil industry is economically beneficial for industry and locals, it has faced critiques due to its role in deforestation. The accusations often do not contemplate the historical land use and land cover (LULC) before the palms were planted. The negative “branding” of destructive palm plantations can lead to consumers’ low desire to buy the products, suppressing local economic development. Therefore, this research aimed to prove otherwise by analyzing the historical LULC changes in four oil palm smallholdings in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Information was obtained through interviews, literature reviews, and satellite image analysis. Literatures on oil palm customers revealed the links between smallholders, customer demands, and deforestation. Since deforestation strongly affects customer’s view, tracing back to the historical LULC on the smallholdings revealed that the lands used to be unattended shrubs, peat lands and dryland farms as other-land-use area. Hence, they were proven not to have converted any legal forest area into monoculture plantations. The different views of international and national on deforestation term needs to have common ground and discussed deeper for better view on Indonesian oil palm production.