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Through the loss of structurally complex habitats, biodiversity is drastically reduced in oil palm-dominated landscapes and deforestation impairs key ecosystem services. Despite its commercial success, intensive oil palm monoculture must cope with constraints imposed by climate change and labour shortages. Deep changes are needed to adapt the traditional plantation model and to innovate on more resilient cultivation systems. Oil palm-based agroforestry is expected to regenerate biodiversity in monocultural landscapes while providing sustainable income to farmers. The TRAILS Project has established an international consortium linking a research organization (CIRAD), a community-based environmental NGO (HUTAN), a Malaysian University (Universiti Putra Malaysia), and a commercial oil palm plantation (Melangking Oil Palm Plantations). The consortium has set up experimental oil palm-based agroforestry plots in a commercial plantation located in Sabah, Malaysia, a global hotspot of biodiversity. Our agroforestry trials seek to assess the ability of a forest species (either as an individual or mixed planting) to be successfully associated with oil palm and to create more viable complex diversified agrosystemswhich will be able to support wildlife in a sustainable way. The Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SaBC) is currently preparing the nomination of the Kinabatangan landscape as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve, and Hutan has been appointed as the consultant to assist in this initiative. Partners are organising a workshop on the draft management plan for the Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve (KBR) that will include key stakeholders from state government agencies, community leaders, oil palm companies, and tourism operators. We would be honoured if you could present a brief introductory talk about "the TRAILS project: Innovative agroforestry designs in oil palm plantations" as a key project conducted in the Kinabatangan.

Southeast Asia is home to 20% of the remaining tropical forests, yet it suffers from the highest rates of deforestation globally due to the expansion of agroindustrial and smallholder tree crop plantations, particularly oil palm plantations. This development has led to the decline of emblematic species such as orangutans, but also of critical functional groups, including soil fauna and fungi. Through the loss of structurally complex habitats, biodiversity is drastically reduced in oil palm-dominated landscapes and deforestation impairs key ecosystem services. Despite its commercial success, intensive oil palm monoculture has now reached its social and environmental limits. The TRAILS Project has established an international consortium linking a research organization (CIRAD), a community-based environmental NGO (HUTAN), a Malaysian University (Universiti Putra Malaysia), and a commercial oil palm plantation (Melangking Oil Palm Plantations). The consortium has set up experimental oil palm-based agroforestry plots in a commercial plantation located in Sabah, Malaysia, a global hotspot of biodiversity. TRAILS has planted a series of field experiments aimed at: i) evaluating the feasibility of intercropping, associating oil palms and forest trees, ii) assessing the potential for agroforestry of 17 native forest species and, iii) characterizing biological interactions between oil palm plants and some of these tree species. Our overarching goal is to ascertain synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and sustainable palm oil production. This article describes three original planting designs, paving the way for a new generation of climate-smart and resilient plantations.

Consumers’ concern on the adverse effect of the palm oil have contributed towards setting sustainability standard and certification of the palm oil. Choice experiment study was conducted to evaluate consumers’ preference for sustainable palm oil supply chain model with environmental attributes. There is allegation that oil palm expansion has threatened biodiversity, and has led to increase in the emission of harmful CO2. Certified sustainable palm oil was introduced to stimulate consumer demand for conservation graded palm oil products. We examine consumer awareness on palm oil and their heterogeneous preference for cooking oil certified by Round table on Sustainable Palm Oil. Sample of 322 consumers were surveyed in Malaysia. Respondents were found to be aware of the importance of palm oil and its contribution of to the economy. We analysed Latent Class Model with 2 classes, the 1st class are “concerned consumers” who are willing to pay up to 5% price premium increase over the present stock value of cooking oil. While 2nd class are “palm oil neutral” who are willing to pay 1%. Income level of the consumers and education were found to have positively influenced their preference for sustainable palm value chain and environmental attributes. Thus, adoption of certification and ecolabel of the palm oil will promote sustainability, also the price premium will incentivise RSPO value stakeholders to conserve biodiversity and minimise CO2 emission, on demand side, it will stimulate consumers to switch to the consumption of sustainable palm oil.

Background. TRAILS stands for “climaTe Resilient lAndscapes for wIldLife conServation”. TRAILS is a multidisciplinary research project aimed at identifying innovative solutions for wildlife and people in multiple-use landscapes. Methods. Mixed-tree forests provide habitat in the context of industrial agriculture: Pioneer tree species are efficient in restoring healthy riparian forests and providing shelter for wildlife. THen small mammals, primates or disseminate seeds originating from nearby patches of natural forests and contribute to the natural cycle of forest regeneration. Biodiversity corridors contribute to climatic resilience as agroforestry systems can mitigate climate change through the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in plants and soil. Changes in GHG emissions and soil organic carbon stocks are monitored after land conversion into agroforest. Mixed plantations can also improve livelihoods: It is key to understand changes in the structure and stability of oil palm planters' income induced by the transition from monoculture plantations towards mixed-planted systems. Objectives • To install oil-palm-based agroforestry systems: mixed planting are installed using selected oil palm seedlings and native forest tree species grown in locally-run nurseries in the study area (Sabah, Borneo Island, Malaysia). • To monitor wildlife recolonization dynamics (abundance, diversity, and mobility) in areas covered with mixed-planting, riparian corridors, and oil palms. • To study the agronomic performance of oil palms: growth, development, and nutrition of palms together with fruit yields and bunch characteristics are measured. • To understand key characters of climate resilience through the monitoring of bioclimatic condition of the parcels and their ability to provide environmental services. • To analyze the socioeconomic impact of the transition from oil palm monospecific plantation to agroforestry systems. Conclusion TRAILS builds on a complementary partner

TRAILS stands for “climaTe Resilient lAndscapes for wIldLife conServation”; it is a multidisciplinary research project aimed at assessing innovative solutions for wildlife and people in oil palm-dominated landscapes in Sabah, Borneo Island, Malaysia. Mixed-tree forests can provide habitat in a context of industrial agriculture, as pioneer tree species are efficient in restoring healthy riparian forests and providing shelter for wildlife. Biodiversity corridors also contribute to climatic resilience, as agroforestry systems can mitigate climate change through the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in plants and soil. Mixed plantations also improve livelihoods: it is key to understand ecosystems services and wellbeing values attributed by local communities to the reforestation of riparian areas and the transition from monoculture plantations toward mixed-planted systems. TRAILS objective is to install oil-palm-based agroforestry systems, using selected oil palm seedlings and native forest tree species grown in locally run village nurseries. The project also aims at monitoring the dynamics of recolonization by wildlife in areas covered with mixed-planting, riparian corridors, and oil palm plantations. The project monitors the agronomic performance of oil palms planted under agroforestry designs. TRAILS also aims at understanding key characters of climate resilience through the monitoring of bioclimatic condition of the parcels and their ability to provide environmental services. TRAILS builds on a complementary partnership, linking academic, NGOs, private and public stakeholders, thus enabling integrated approaches arising from various science fields, from agronomy and forestry to veterinary sciences, including a detailed socioeconomic approach.

Increasing consumer preference for sustainable palm oil necessitates a paradigm shift towards certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO), and the introduction of CSPO cooking oil, with environmental attribute certification and eco-labelling, will be hallmarks of the necessary sustainability standard. In this study, we applied a choice experiment to investigate supply side consumer preferences, and to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for cooking oil certified under Roundtable for Sustainable Palm oil (RSPO). Sustainability standards for the palm oil industry were introduced to address environmental issues, such as biodiversity conservation, and the harmful reduction in CO2 emission. To achieve this, we examined Malaysian consumer knowledge of the CSPO, and investigated its influence on their choice of palm oil supply value chain model, considering biodiversity conservation, CO2 reduction and the willingness to pay (WTP). The main finding of this study indicated that Malaysian consumers are willing to pay more than a 5% price premium for RSPO certified palm (cooking) oil, while the most prioritized attributes is the mass balanced supply chain model that included both moderate levels of biodiversity conservation and of CO2 emission.

The adoption of sustainable palm oil standards remains voluntary. It is unclear whether early adopters achieve better financial performance than those who lag in adopting. This study examines how the profitability, in terms of the return on invested capital (ROIC) of plantation companies is impacted by the entry order of the adoption of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) sustainability standard. Based on the 2000–2016 panel data of the 39 plantation companies listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, this study has demonstrated profitability as being influenced by the timing of entry (adoption), related resource allocation, business efficiency, and the price of crude palm oil. Since early adopters (plantation companies) realised a positive relationship with ROIC, the presence of an early mover advantage can be hypothesised. This positional advantage is likely to yield both operating and capital efficiencies, such as those predicated in the good management practices of the RSPO standard. This finding is useful as a motivational strategy to augment the acceptance of international palm oil standards among plantation companies, which are often a nucleus to smallholders. The implications for firms adopting other sustainability standards are also discussed.

The global palm oil value chain has grown in complexity; stakeholder relationships and linkages are increasingly shaped by new public and private standards that aim to ameliorate social and environmental costs while harnessing economic gains. Regulatory initiatives in the emerging policy regime complex struggle to resolve sector‐wide structural performance issues: pervasive land conflicts, yield differences between companies and smallholders, and carbon emissions arising from deforestation and peatland conversion. Identifying opportunities for more effective governance of the palm oil value chain and supply landscapes, this paper explores disconnects, complementarities, and antagonisms between public regulations and private standards, looking at the global, national, and subnational policy domains shaping chain actors' conduct. Greater complementarities have emerged among transnational instruments, but state regulation disconnects persist and antagonisms prevail between national state regulations and transnational private standards. Emerging experimental approaches, particularly at subnational level, aim to improve coordination to both enhance complementarities and resolve disconnects.

Drastic movements of global commodity prices and their impact on the Thai palm oil market is a major concern due to Thailand being the third largest producer of crude palm oil (CPO). Although the country is not a net importer, global price changes of the commodity can transmit to domestic markets for palm oil products. This paper analyzed the transmission of Malaysian CPO and world crude oil price changes to the changes in the Thai CPO price using an asymmetric error correction model. The price data used in this paper covers the period from January 1996 to September 2015. The findings showed that the speed of adjustments towards long-run equilibrium were asymmetric and the effects of the world prices on Thai CPO price were significant in both positive and negative deviations. This result calls for policy measures to mitigate the impact of global price movements because CPO is an essential intermediate input in various products and any changes in the Thai CPO price definitely affects the welfare of domestic consumers.

Reliazing the pass-through effects of global commodity prices on domestic prices, this study develops a vector error correction model (VECM) to test for the determinants and direction of causality between global prices and crude palm oil (CPO) price in Thailand. Malaysian crude palm oil, world soybean oil and world crude oil prices were investigated as factors affecting the Thai CPO price. Using the Johansen cointegration test, the result unveils a presence of long-run relationship among the determinants. This long-run relationship, proposes that CPO price flows in Thailand are positively influenced by the Malaysian CPO price and the error correction term suggests that approximately 35 percent of total disequilibrium in Thai CPO price was corrected in the following month. Moreover, the findings show Granger causality from each of the Malaysian CPO price and the world soybean oil price for the Thai CPO price. Information flow regarding the price movements of the Malaysian CPO and soybean oil affect the Thai CPO price and vice-versa. Whereas, the evidence for a causal relationship that runs from the world crude oil price to the Thai CPO price is found, but not in reverse.

The application of agricultural biotechnology attracts the interest of many stakeholders. Genetically modified (GM) crops, for example, have been rapidly increasing in production for the last 20 years. Despite their known benefits, GM crops also pose many concerns not only to human and animal health but also to the environment. Malaysia, in general, allows the use of GM technology applications but it has to come with precautionary and safety measures consistent with the international obligations and domestic legal frameworks. This paper provides an overview of GM crop technology from international and national context and explores the governance and issues surrounding this technology application in Malaysia. Basically, GM research activities in Malaysia are still at an early stage of research and development and most of the GM crops approved for release are limited for food, feed and processing purposes. Even though Malaysia has not planted any GM crops commercially, actions toward such a direction seem promising. Several issues concerning GM crops as discussed in this paper will become more complex as the number of GM crops and varieties commercialised globally increase and Malaysia starts to plant GM crops. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

This paper investigates the effect of global prices in the Thai palm oil market. We provide comprehensive evidence of growth and volatility spillovers for the key crop, crude palm oil in Thailand over the period 1996 to 2015. The Dynamic Conditional Correlation model (DCC) and Granger Causality tests are used, to analyze price volatility effects among Thai and Malaysian crude palm oil and World crude oil prices. Our findings delivered several significant conclusions; that higher prices indicates a positive impact on their uncertainty and also increase a correlation variance among them. Moreover, the Malaysian crude palm oil and world crude oil returns have spillover effects on each of their uncertainty, while Malaysian crude palm oil return has a strong effect on the Thai crude palm oil price and vice versa. Therefore, the government and policy makers in Thailand should pay heed to the changes and fluctuations in those global prices.

The issue of sustainability of tropical commodity chains is a major issue in Southeast Asia. The recurrent public debate around the impacts of oil palm cultivation, in particular, crystallizes opinions and has direct consequences on the relationship between importing and producing countries with many direct and indirect consequences, both on the diplomatic and economic areas. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. In order to realize SDG ambitions in the field of sustainable commodity chains, CIRAD and its regional partners are setting up a partnership platform for the construction of scientific projects and training curricula in South-East Asia, a region of the world where problems related to the sustainability of major agricultural sectors are particularly prominent (deforestation, rural poverty reduction, family farming, etc.). SALSA (Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes in Southeast Asia) aims at regionally federating and mobilizing scientific and training skills on the sustainability of perennial crops sectors. SALSA will promote, within a framework of collective action, the concrete integration of disciplines and multi-stakeholder teams into research, training and development projects that will be conducted on the ground through shared experimental networks and academic and training curricula tailored to the needs for present and future skills.

Key messages: - Several sustainability certification schemes have been developed for palm oil; however, the field impacts of these schemes remain highly uncertain. The Sustainable Palm Oil Production (SPOP) project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), was aimed at consolidating and deepening the scientific basis of these schemes. - SPOP field work undertaken in Indonesia and Cameroon highlighted the large variability in practices and impacts of oil palm systems. Our main results related to the uncovering of the multiplicity of growers and their trajectories, and identifying room for improvement and the need for recommendations adapted to the various grower contexts and strategies. - The SPOP project made it explicit that visions of sustainability and global challenges vary greatly among growers and other stakeholders involved in the palm oil sector. These diverging conceptions are most likely to induce bottlenecks in the definition and implementation of good practices and should be accounted for in the refinement of sustainability criteria. - Within the SPOP project, we investigated possible futures for oil palm using participatory prospective analyses and multi-agent-based modeling work. Our research work showed that capacity development and the organizational capacity of smallholders, fair partnerships and combined forms of governance are key drivers in ensuring the uptake of good practices and sustainable development at the landscape scale.

The emergence and rapid spread of voluntary sustainability standards are transforming the boundaries between the public and private regulation, particularly regarding tropical agribusiness value chains. Following agricultural deregulation and international trade liberalization in the late 1980s, agribusiness value-chains regulations through new governance arrangements rely on the “retreat of the State” rhetoric. However, although the growing influence of non-state actors in world politics looks obvious, States are far from being sidelined. The development of voluntary sustainability standards contributes further to a change of the role of the state, instead of their retreat. This contribution aims at characterizing these transformations of the public action resulting from voluntary sustainability standards, through case studies conducted in two countries: Brazil and Malaysia. To do this, surveys have been conducted on two value chains in Brazil (sugarcane and beef) and one value-chain (palm-oil) in Malaysia. The results show firstly that voluntary sustainability standards are far from operating alone. Instead, in various cases, their effectiveness depends on a strong public action, as shown by the success of the fight against deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Furthermore, our work shows that the emergence of private standards implies a deep transformation of public action. In Brazil, for instance, new technologies of government have been set. By conditioning access to credit on sustainability goals and putting pressure on retailers and manufacturers, the Brazilian government has forced the cattle industry to self-organize in order to set-up sustainability standards that will make them "politically acceptable" on the global markets. However, these standards do not target family agriculture or the informal sectors, for which the social and environmental issues remain significant. In Malaysia, however, many public actors have expressed resistance facing the change

Among the oil palm supply chain participants, the smallholders are relatively at a disadvantage because of their small farms, low production and other structural problems. An empowerment program is one of the effective measures to improve their economic status. An understanding of perception on empowerment program will help the policy makers to design an effective empowerment program. The study identifies the determinants of the oil palm farmers’ participation in training for the empowerment program. Struc tured questionnaire and face-to-face data collection methods are employed to obtain the primary data from 194 oil palm smallholders in Tanjung Jabung Barat, Jambi Province, Indonesia. Logistic-regression is used to gain information on the determinant of smallholders’ readiness to participate in the empowerment program. The principal component analysis indicates that knowledge and activities variables have significant effect on the probability of farmers’ participation on the training related with the empowerment program. Income is the only variable derived from socio-economic variable that becomes the determinant of farmers in involving the training on empowerment program, while the other otherwise.

Suite à la libéralisation des échanges qui s'est accentuée en 2000, certains pays ont publié des réglementations nationales visant à limiter les importations de produits d'origine animale. Toutefois, il n'a pas été clairement démontré que ces instruments de politique avaient été liés à des objectifs sanitaires, ou à d'autres logiques sociales, politiques ou économiques. Au Sénégal, une mesure d'interdiction des importations des produits de l'aviculture et de matériels avicoles usagers, officiellement justifiée par des garanties sanitaires dans le contexte de la crise de la grippe aviaire, avait été prise en 2005. Cependant, cette mesure a soulevé des débats importants au sein des pays de l'OMC du fait que certains acteurs nationaux et pays exportateurs de viande de volaille la considèrent comme une mesure protectionniste. Ce constat peut amener à mettre l'accent sur les acteurs et la multiplicité des intérêts nationaux et même internationaux en concurrence, dans ces processus. L'objet de cet article est d'expliciter la manière dont les risques et les incertitudes sanitaires peuvent être instrumentalisés par divers acteurs. L'approche instrumentale de l'action publique (Lascoumes et Le Galès, 2004) a permis d'appréhender cet objet. Cette recherche a été menée entre 2009 et 2010 sur la base d'entretiens conduits auprès des acteurs économiques (aviculteurs, importateurs, provendiers, accouveurs), les services étatiques et la société civile (les associations d'aviculteurs, de commerçants, d'industriels, de provendiers, les interprofessions, les ONG, les associations de consommateurs, etc.) et de données statistiques, documents officiels et communiqués de presse, etc. L'analyse des résultats montre qu'a priori, la mesure de suspension des importations de produits et matériels avicoles découle de la propagation de la grippe aviaire au niveau de certains pays exportateurs. Cependant, l'analyse du processus dans une perspective diachronique montre que le processus a été ini

Aviation represents a small but growing share of global CO2 emissions (2-3%), and Southeast Asia is where this industry grows the fastest. The industry targets 50% reduction in net CO2 emission by 2050, and will need at least 2 million tonnes of biofuel by 2020. In Southeast Asia, competition between natural spaces (such as tropical forests) and biofuel development should be avoided. A complex interaction of political, sociological and natural factors influence the logistics, the infrastructures and the potential sustainability of biofuel. The contrasted growing conditions, and the geographically scattered nature of the potential resources for aviation industry, add to the complexity. Building visions and actions necessitates a range of assessments and researches, to insure sustainability of appropriate scenarios and pathways. In Malaysia, a consortium established a Center of Excellence on Biomass Valorisation for aviation, in order to study the biomass feedstocks and pathways which are necessary to meet the industry target, and to ensure sustainability.