🌴 Palm Oil
Palm oil is found in approximately 50% of all packaged supermarket products — from biscuits and margarine to shampoo, lipstick, and biodiesel. It is the world's most widely produced and consumed vegetable oil, valued for its high yield per hectare, its stability at high temperatures, and its versatility as both a food ingredient and an industrial feedstock. It is also one of the most significant drivers of tropical deforestation in Southeast Asia, where the expansion of oil palm plantations has destroyed millions of hectares of biodiverse tropical forest and peatland since the 1980s.
of packaged goods contain palm oil
Indonesian forest lost to palm oil
palm oil produced annually
Indonesia — world's largest emitter from land use
Indonesia has been the epicentre of palm oil-driven deforestation. Between 1990 and 2015, Indonesia lost approximately 25 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the United Kingdom. Oil palm expansion was the primary driver. Particularly damaging has been the conversion of peatlands — carbon-dense waterlogged ecosystems that store enormous quantities of ancient organic carbon. When peatlands are drained and burned for palm oil cultivation, the carbon they have stored over thousands of years is released in massive quantities. Indonesia's land-use emissions — driven primarily by peatland destruction — made it the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the early 2010s.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in 2004 as a multi-stakeholder certification scheme to promote sustainable palm oil production. RSPO-certified palm oil now accounts for approximately 19% of global production. The certification prohibits clearing of high conservation value forests, development on peatlands, and burning for land clearing. However, critics note that RSPO standards have been inconsistently enforced, that certification does not guarantee zero deforestation in supply chains, and that the majority of palm oil — including that used in many consumer products — remains uncertified.
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Dr. Carvalho has spent 14 years studying tropical forest dynamics, deforestation drivers, and conservation policy across the Amazon basin and Southeast Asia. She draws on data from Global Forest Watch, FAO, and the IPCC to make forest science accessible to global audiences.