1. Certified "sustainable" palm oil took the place of endangered Bornean and Sumatran large mammals habitat and tropical forests in the last 30 years.
- Author
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Cazzolla Gatti R and Velichevskaya A
- Subjects
- Animals, Asia, Southeastern, Borneo, Certification, Ecosystem, Indonesia, Palm Oil, Conservation of Natural Resources, Forests
- Abstract
Tropical forests inhabited by endangered orangutans, rhinos, tigers, and elephants in South-east Asia are threatened by deforestation, including oil palm expansion. Certification has been proposed to label sustainable palm oil production. However, from a remotely sensed time-series and imagery analysis (1984-2020), we discovered that most of the currently certified grower supply bases and concessions in Sumatra and Borneo are located in the 1990s large mammals habitat and in areas that were biodiverse tropical forests less than 30 years ago. In light of this dramatic evidence, we suggest that certification schemes claim for the "sustainable" production of palm oil just because they neglect a very recent past of deforestation and habitat degradation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2020
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