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Oil palm plantations in Colombia: A model of future expansion
... The total area available and suitable in a region for sowing a given crop is limited. This includes areas already used for agriculture and "new" land suitable for use change, e.g., from degraded or improved pastures to commercial crops (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Quezada et al., 2022). The limitation is also determined by meteorological variables, particularly rainfall and photosynthetic active radiation (Morales-Rincon et al., 2021), soil and terrain characteristics, location and infrastructure Castiblanco et al., 2013), technology and security. ...
... This includes areas already used for agriculture and "new" land suitable for use change, e.g., from degraded or improved pastures to commercial crops (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Quezada et al., 2022). The limitation is also determined by meteorological variables, particularly rainfall and photosynthetic active radiation (Morales-Rincon et al., 2021), soil and terrain characteristics, location and infrastructure Castiblanco et al., 2013), technology and security. If the maximum area that can be sown (i.e., the area asymptotic or saturation limit, also known as "carrying capacity") is large, as it is in Orinoquia, the initial expansion rate is expected to be slow and linear, then faster around the expansion mid-point (exponential phase), and afterwards again slow as the sown area approaches its carrying capacity. ...
... frontiersin.org models applied to Orinoquia by other investigators Castiblanco et al., 2013) apparently do not suffer from the problems reported here. The Colombian Orinoquia sown area increased by 494 ± 47 km 2 (49 ± 5 kha; plus/minus is 1-sigma) on average every year during the 2007-2018 period. ...
The Colombian Orinoco savannas (254 thousand km²), also known as Orinoquia or Llanos, have been steadily transformed into pastures for more than a century, and since the 1990s, into commodity crop intensified production. The cropland area expanded at 12% yr⁻¹ during the 2007–2018 period (65% larger than in 1996–2007). Yet, we estimate that cattle ranching occupied ten times more area (34%) than cropland (3.2%) in 2018. The rest of Orinoquia, including indigenous reservations and protected areas, was in a semi-natural state, although also exposed to seasonal fire. The three main crops, oil palm, corn, and rice (72% of the sown area in 2017), accounted for 68% of the expansion, with permanent crops expanding two times faster (18% yr⁻¹) than short-cycle crops. An extrapolation of trends indicates that the cultivated area will double by 2040 (reaching 20 thousand km²), with oil palm as the dominant crop. Satellite measurements show that 7% of Orinoquia burned every year during the 1997–2016 period, yet with large spatial and interannual variations (±26%), and significant decrease trends (up to −4% yr⁻¹). Up to 40% of the burned area (BA) interannual variability was linked to irregular rainfall and drought. The areas with the larger fractional BA were also those with the least fractional cropland cover. A model developed to describe this coupling, along with rainfall and other effects, successfully explained most of Orinoquia’s BA variability (r 2 = 0.93). The fitted model indicates that each sown hectare reduced the BA by 0.17 ha. This model predicts that the combination of cropland expansion and independent BA decline will lead to a fourfold reduction of Orinoquia’s BA by 2040 referred to 1997. Orinoquia’s crop production generated 3 Gg of PM10 (particulate matter <10 µm) in 2016, mostly from short-cycle crops, while biomass burning generated 57 Gg, i.e., 95% of the combined emissions. These are expected to halve during the 2017–2040 period, despite an 83% increase in crop production emissions, as total and seasonal emissions will remain controlled by biomass burning. Such a large pollution burden reduction should have tremendous positive impacts on public health in Orinoquia and the Andes.
... The global demand for vegetable oil is expected to grow as the world's population continues its march towards nine billion people by 2050 (Nelson et al., 2010), consumer's preference shifts toward vegetable oil containing lower trans-fat due to health consciousness (World Health Organization, 2015), and the demand for biofuel blending increases driven by climate change concerns (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Murugesan et al., 2009). As oil palm is by far the oil crop with the highest oil production per unit of land, is cheaper to produce, and is priced lower than most alternative vegetable oils (Carter et al., 2007;Sheil et al., 2009), and the Indonesian government promotes oil palm plantation as a way to alleviate poverty and advance rural development (Santika et al., 2019), oil palm expansion would continue to occur in Indonesia to support the global demand and benefit local economic growth in the next few decades, even though there is growing commitment to protect tropical forests and their environmental services. ...
... The existing literature on projections of oil palm plantation has typically extrapolated historical rates of LCLU change Carlson et al., 2013;Castiblanco et al., 2013), identifies lands with high biophysical suitability (Koh and Ghazoul, 2010;Pirker et al., 2016;Vijay et al., 2016), and/or incorporates policy interventions or national goals Castiblanco et al., 2013;Sumarga and Hein, 2016). Some studies sequentially downscaled and spatially allocated the projection at the national level to finer scales by identifying the most probable areas of future oil palm plantation Castiblanco et al., 2013;Sumarga and Hein, 2016) to quantify the trade-offs between oil palm plantation and environmental protection, however, the logistic regressions employed in these studies make little use the important temporal information and were not able to capture the varying trends along the temporal trajectory. ...
... The existing literature on projections of oil palm plantation has typically extrapolated historical rates of LCLU change Carlson et al., 2013;Castiblanco et al., 2013), identifies lands with high biophysical suitability (Koh and Ghazoul, 2010;Pirker et al., 2016;Vijay et al., 2016), and/or incorporates policy interventions or national goals Castiblanco et al., 2013;Sumarga and Hein, 2016). Some studies sequentially downscaled and spatially allocated the projection at the national level to finer scales by identifying the most probable areas of future oil palm plantation Castiblanco et al., 2013;Sumarga and Hein, 2016) to quantify the trade-offs between oil palm plantation and environmental protection, however, the logistic regressions employed in these studies make little use the important temporal information and were not able to capture the varying trends along the temporal trajectory. ...
Oil palm plantation has expanded rapidly in Indonesia, driven by the enormous increase in the global demand for oil palm products. While the production and exporting of oil palm products have stimulated economic growth and improved living standards of local people, the expansion has imposed significant costs on the environment. Indonesia faces tough challenges to balance oil palm production with the growing commitment to protect tropical forest and peatland. This research offered a comprehensive assessment of the local responses in land-use changes and the associated environmental impacts in Indonesia to the dynamics on the global market of oil palm products. We employed generalized geo-economic gravity models to project export demand for oil palm products from Indonesia by 2050 under three different international trade scenarios. With the help of parametric survival analysis, we allocated the projected demands to 1km × 1km grids across Indonesia and quantified the possible trade-offs between oil palm expansion and environmental conservation. Results show that about 313–679 million tons of oil palm products (oil palm fruit equivalent) from Indonesia would be needed by 2050, which means about 18.58–45.59 million hectares of new plantation. We estimated that 8%–22% of secondary forest and 21%–54% of peatland would lose to oil palm expansion by 2050 if the expansion follows the historical pathways. Shifting the expansion from natural forest and peatland to degraded land with low environmental values would reduce the CO2 emission by about 87–142 Mton/year, at the expense of increased transportation and infrastructure accessibility costs. This shift towards sustainable palm oil production can be facilitated by extending current policies and regulations to secondary forest, enforcing stricter restrictions on peatland, supporting infrastructure development, and providing economic incentives.
... Si bien la expansión del cultivo de palma de aceite ha tenido una fuerte asociación con la deforestación de zonas naturales en los principales países productores (Khasanah, 2019), en Colombia se reporta una situación diferente, puesto que el crecimiento del área sembrada se ha dado a partir de la conversión de zonas antes ocupadas por matorrales, tierras de cultivo y pasturas para ganado (Castanheira et al., 2014;Castiblanco et al., 2013;Furumo y Aide, 2017;Henson et al., 2012). ...
... Las mejoras propuestas dependen de un aumento en el rendimiento del cultivo de palma, una reducción en el uso de fertilizantes químicos, la mitigación del LUC y la producción de biomasa de valor agregado. Para mitigar las emisiones generados por LUC, los cultivos de palma de aceite deben ser establecidos en suelos con bajas reservas de carbono, como suelos degradados o de uso agrícola (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Wicke et al., 2012). Sin embargo, cuando esto ocurre puede desplazarse la producción de alimentos y forrajes hacia otros áreas (Gerssen-Gondelach, 2015). ...
... La escala regional se enfoca en un análisis de las tres zonas palmeras mencionadas anteriormente, las cuales tienen diferencias en términos de clima, tipo de suelo, cobertura terrestre y biodiversidad (WWF Colombia, 2017), así como distintos enfoques de manejo agroindustrial (Castiblanco et al., 2015;Henson et al., 2012). Debido a ciertas limitaciones para obtener información completa y actualizada sobre el LUC, se emplearon datos nacionales (Torres, 2018) y regionales (Castiblanco et al., 2013) reportados por otros trabajos, asumiendo que estos son representativos del tipo de LUC y de los efectos de las reservas de carbono. No obstante, es pertinente mencionar que existe cierto grado de incertidumbre frente al tema. ...
La expansión de las plantaciones de palma de aceite, tanto para la extracción de aceite de palma crudo (APC) como para la elaboración de productos de origen biológico, ha generado gran preocupación en torno al impacto de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) de este cultivo. Aunque Colombia tiene el potencial para producir bienes de origen biológico sostenibles a partir del cultivo de palma de aceite, las emisiones nacionales de GEI no han sido reportadas para este sector. Por ello, la recolección de datos primarios consolidados del sector palmicultor colombiano representa un
interesante desafío. A partir de ese interés, el presente estudio logró la recolección de datos del 70 % de la producción nacional de racimos de fruta fresca (RFF) con el fin de analizar el estado actual de la producción de APC, incorporando información sobre (i) el cálculo de emisiones de GEI, (ii) la relación de energía neta (NER, por sus siglas en inglés) y (iii) el desempeño económico del proceso.
... Thus, the present work addresses a common theme linking the mentioned concepts, namely that of sustainable agricultural transformation design (Dwyer, 2013). Regarding the case study, Castiblanco et al. (2013) and Rodríguez and Van Hoof (2004) utter that the main limitation of the Colombian oil palm sector is the lack of sufficient scientific information to address specific land management decisions. ...
... García-Cáceres et al. (2013) characterised the upstream phase of the Colombian oil palm supply chain. In turn, Castiblanco et al. (2013) studied the impact of policies and subsidies on the biofuel agribusiness in this country and introduced a model for the future expansion of oil palm plantations in Colombia. García-Cáceres et al. (2015) and García-Cáceres (2018) have introduced DSS for tactical and strategic decision making in the oil palm supply chain. ...
... In the Neotropics, for example, oil palm often replaces grasslands and agriculture (Furumo and Aide 2017). The expansion of oil palm cultivation is expected to continue based on the current palm oil market demands (von Geibler 2013, Bessou et al 2017 and as national governments promote these plantations as a driver of economic growth by establishing policies such as tax exemptions and subsidy programs (Castiblanco et al 2013, Dislich et al 2017, Furumo and Aide 2017. ...
... Future crop expansion in tropical countries outside South East Asia is expected(Koh and Ghazoul 2010, Castiblanco et al 2013, Pirker et al 2016, Monzon et al 2021 given limitations in land availability in this region, the continued demand for palm oil, and the interest of local governments in establishing this crop for economic development. Global oil palm harvested area is concentrated in the Indo-Malayan region, specifically in Indonesia and Malaysia, representing 70% of the total crop area. ...
Global demand for vegetable oil and high oil palm yield have driven the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in tropical countries. The research literature widely recognizes the effects of forest cover conversion into oil palm on biodiversity, deforestation, and carbon dynamics. However, research on the ecohydrological impacts of oil palm plantations is sparse, despite studies indicating that oil palm development may reshape land-water interactions and the availability and movement of water at different spatial and temporal scales. We address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review on oil palm development and its relation to ecohydrological processes. We found 139 relevant papers up to the year 2021, addressing different ecohydrological processes related to oil palm. We reviewed their spatiotemporal scales, geographic distribution, oil palm species and age, and the effects of land conversion from forest, cropland, and pastures. We also incorporated societal aspects regarding community perceptions of water. Our review highlights the effects of oil palm plantations on three main components of the water cycle: i) land-atmosphere, ii) fluvial systems, and iii) soils and groundwater. Most studies include analyses of the Indo-Malayan and Australasian biogeographical regions (113), followed by the Neotropics (49) and the Afrotropics (15). Compared to rainforests, oil palm monocultures are warmer and drier. They have higher evapotranspiration rates, lower runoff regulation and infiltration capacity, and lower soil organic carbon. Although less often implemented, alternative oil palm management practices, including oil palm agroforestry, can help to mitigate some of these effects. Forest to oil palm conversion is the most studied land transition, while conversions from croplands, pastures, and grasslands are less studied. Overall, we identify gaps in understanding the long-term effects of management on ecohydrological processes under different land conversions, especially in the Neotropics and the Afrotropics, precluding research-informed policy to manage impacts of this expanding crop.
... The best place for planting the crop is on the flat or gently undulating ground (Verheye 2010, Paterson et al. 2013, Abubakar et al. 2022a, 2022b. Oil palm is a very lucrative crop and a highyielding oil plant (Corley & Tinker 2008, Castiblanco et al. 2013. It is economically the most efficient of all oil crops because of its ease of establishment, low costs, and high output (Dislich et al. 2017). ...
... Palm oil and other products derived from oil palm are found in a variety of products such as lipstick, pizza dough, instant noodles, shampoo, ice cream, detergent, margarine, chocolate, cookies, biodiesel, soap, packaged bread. The product is also found in frying fats, biscuits, snack foods, bakery products, cosmetics, candles, pharmaceuticals, and supermarket goods, etc. (Nagaraj 2009, Teoh 2010, Sutton & Kpentey 2012, Castiblanco et al. 2013, Paterson & Lima 2018. Oil palm is highly produced by the following countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ivory Coast, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador (Corley & Tinker 2003, Paterson et al. 2013, Abubakar et al. 2022a, 2022b, Abubakar et al. 2022a, 2022b. ...
In recent years, palm oil production has grown rapidly as a result of rising demand. Oil palm plantations have been established on thousands of acres to meet this demand. The objective of this study is to assess the suitability of oil palm production as driven by soil, climate, and land use. The land suitability assessment (LSA) method was adopted in this study. We use geospatial techniques of overlay mapping as a suitable land suitability assessment method, in which the evaluation criteria are recorded as superimposed layers. A land suitability map is produced by integrating these layers into a single layer. The method is also applied to delineate available areas for growing oil palm in Peninsular Malaysia. The findings revealed that suitable soil areas for oil palm production are extensively found in the selected regions of Peninsular Malaysia, in states like Selangor and some parts of Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu with clay loam and sandy loam soil properties, while in the southern region like Melaka, moderate suitability for oil palm production was found due to the domination of clay soil in the area. Highly suitable areas were estimated (mean annual water deficit <150 mm) to be 3688254.00 ha (29.54%) of the total land area; suitable areas (mean annual water deficit <250 mm) were 6540669.00 ha (52.38%); moderately suitable areas were (mean annual water deficit <400 mm) 2227500.00 ha (17.84%), and unsuitable areas (mean annual water deficit >400mm) for oil palm production as a result of poor water availability was 31104.00ha (0.25%). The Land Use Land Cover Map of Peninsular Malaysia revealed the suitable areas to cover an average of 10885001.46 ha (82.45%), water bodies 1239505.58 ha (9.39%), built-up areas (unsuitable areas) 1051544.34 ha (7.96%), and bare surface areas are also not suitable areas for oil palm production at 26509.73 ha (0.20%). This study recommends that oil palm plantations be expanded into areas with highly suitable soils and climates.
... Another expanding land-use, afforestation, is often viewed as a winwin for forestry industries and the environment due to the carbon sequestration benefits that come with growing trees within perceived low carbon environments (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Veldman et al., 2015). Afforestation, the process of planting trees at high densities (forests or for commercial purposes including oil palm, eucalyptus, and pine) in areas where they do not occur naturally, is often confused with reforestation, which is the process of re-planting trees where they once naturally occurred. ...
... With this increasingly globalised trade for a range of commodities, tropical savannahs are being affected by socioeconomic factors thousands of kilometres away (Wesz, 2016). This is particularly concerning given agricultural expansion into savannahs is frequently unregulated (Vargas et al., 2015), incentivized (Australian Government, 2015; Departamento Nacional de Planeación, 2019; Morán-Ordóñez et al., 2017), seen as a win-win for development and environmental goals (Castiblanco et al., 2013), and impacts go undocumented (Clements and Fernandes, 2013;Müller et al., 2015) when compared to other ecosystem types. ...
All tropical savannahs are experiencing extensive transformation and degradation, yet conservation strategies do not adequately address threats to savannahs. Here, using a recently published ecosystem intactness metric, we assess the current condition of tropical savannahs across Earth, finding that <3 % remain highly intact. Moreover, their overall levels of protection are low, and of the protected savannahs, just 4 % can be considered highly intact while the majority (>60 %) are in poor condition. In order to address the clear mismatch between the decline in tropical savannah ecosystems’ condition and the response to manage and conserve them, we reviewed the current drivers that lead to tropical savannah degradation and identified conservation approaches being used to address them. Many successful conservation approaches address multiple drivers of change but are applied across small areas. We argue these approaches have the potential to be up-scaled through integrated land-use planning.
... Migrant colonist agricultural systems, in general initially based on rice production, were also problematic, plagued by production and marketing problems, labor issues, and agronomic failure, with real problems of soil nutrient decline and low yields, using varieties and practices not adapted to local conditions, largely as a function of faulty extension and unadapted practices. These issues were exacerbated by titling insecurities, rural violence, very high colonist attrition rates, and high turnover (Hall 2000;Murphy 2001;Etter et al. There was also military environmentalism, as far as it went. ...
... Since the mid-2000s, palm oil has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide, 2017). Although palm oil plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
This Report provides a comprehensive, objective, open, transparent, systematic, and rigorous scientific assessment of the state of the Amazon’s ecosystems, current trends, and their implications for the long-term well-being of the region, as well as opportunities and policy relevant options for conservation and sustainable development.
... Como se discute en los capítulos 5 y 6, los motores de mayor incidencia en la transformación de distintos ecosistemas del país, se encuentran vinculados a la transformación del uso del suelo por expansión de frontera agrícola y ganadera Rodríguez Eraso et al., 2013), consolidación de enclaves productivos como el cultivo de palma de aceite (Boron et al., 2016;Castiblanco et al., 2013) o el desarrollo petrolero en el caso de los llanos orientales (Romero- Rodríguez et al., 2014), e igualmente el desarrollo de proyectos de infraestructura (i.e vías) (Gómez-Ossa & Botero-Fernández, 2017;(Romero-Rodríguez et al., 2014) y la expansión urbana (Aldana-Domínguez et al., 2018). Los efectos de estos motores son el cambio en la funcionalidad, debido a la transformación de propiedades y atributos de los ecosistemas por la reducción, por ejemplo, en el áreas de las coberturas naturales y su fragmentación (pérdida de conectividad) con la consecuente alteración de la biodiversidad. ...
... A nivel local y sectorial, los pocos estudios sobre escenarios se enfocan en evaluar la expansión agrícola y ganadera y sus efectos sobre la conservación de ecosistemas naturales, abordando el uso del suelo como el factor principal que puede tener efectos sobre la biodiversidad, servicios ecosistémicos y bienestar de las poblaciones. Se destacan los trabajos relacionados con el sector agrícola industrial de palma de aceite, como el realizado por Castiblanco et al., (2013), donde se evalúa la expansión del sector a 2020, a partir de transiciones históricas de uso de la tierra, políticas de subsidios, demandas y metas proyectadas y uso de variables biofísicas. Los resultados son disímiles, siendo el más cercano a la realidad el escenario de subsidios, el cual se encuentra muy lejos de alcanzar las expectativas del gobierno. ...
... Others identified agriculture as a proximate cause of current FCC (Etter et al., (Boron et al., 2016). Moreover, the literature highlights the possible risk that palm oil expansion will occur in areas of the colonization frontier (Castiblanco et al., 2013), which feature high forest cover. ...
... Salazar et al. (2018) mentioned that the economic importance of mining activities in Colombia have been increasing in the last 20 years. Mining activities could increase after the signing of the peace agreement due to targets aimed at boosting mining and biofuel production as a way to fuel the country's economic development (Castiblanco et al., 2013). Therefore, the impact of mining and energy production activities could increase in the coming years if the government does not take precautionary measures. ...
Tackling deforestation remains a significant challenge in tropical countries and even more so in those affected by armed conflicts. This is partly because of the limited local understanding of the causes of forest cover changes (FCC) and how these causes relate to development. In this study, we use Colombia as a model to contribute to the understanding of the links between the causes of FCC in conflict-affected countries and policies aimed at achieving sustainable development by targeting the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sectors. Specifically, we reviewed studies reporting on causes of FCC from 1995 to 2019 to build a state-of-the-art review. We then identified relevant public policies targeting AFOLU sectors and used them as a proxy for development. Finally, we discussed the links between these public policies and FCC. From the reviewed literature, it is clear that research on FCC in Colombia has focused on understanding the causes of forest cover losses while disregarding forest cover gains. Although cattle ranching and agriculture dominate the literature as proximate causes of deforestation and policy and institutional factors as underlying causes of deforestation, the relative importance of proximate and underlying causes of FCC in Colombia has changed over time. The main categories of policies that have been linked to FCC deal with conflict and post-conflict issues, coca eradication and, more recently, the implementation of the peace agreement. Another set of policies frequently mentioned are those related to productive activities. In Colombia, these policies' effects on forests will depend on how the state will regulate extractive activities in a post-conflict scenario. Therefore, it is imperative to review and update policies to tackle FCC, mainly deforestation, to successfully achieve sustainability targets in Colombia.
... Migrant colonist agricultural systems, in general initially based on rice production, were also problematic, plagued by production and marketing problems, labor issues, and agronomic failure, with real problems of soil nutrient decline and low yields, using varieties and practices not adapted to local conditions, largely as a function of faulty extension and unadapted practices. These issues were exacerbated by titling insecurities, rural violence, very high colonist attrition rates, and high turnover (Hall 2000;Murphy 2001;Etter et al. There was also military environmentalism, as far as it went. ...
... Since the mid-2000s, palm oil has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide, 2017). Although palm oil plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
This chapter presents country-specific descriptions of human intervention in the Amazon. In general, a rapid expansion of agricultural and extractive activities, mostly for export but also for domestic markets, and to a lesser degree small scale agriculture, have led to extensive deforestation and environmental degradation without substantially improving the living conditions of the population. Government policies and the extent of State ascendancy in the area also seem to be a powerful determinant of the nature and scale of the process. Despite the common underlying international and domestic economic and political forces in the Amazon, each country has its own particularities. In the case of Colombia, the process was shaped by the guerilla presence and deteriorated after the Peace Treaty, which does not mention “deforestation” and perpetuates Colombia’s extractivist model. Ecuador’s case is representative of the link between fossil fuel extraction, environmental deterioration, and social exclusion. The case of Peru shows an Amazon perceived as a territory awaiting to be “conquered, occupied, and exploited”, subjected to an unwavering extractive and market-orientated drive. In Bolivia, contradictions between conservation and state-led development policies and business activities, which have transformed it into the second deforestation hotspot of Amazonia after Brazil, are presented. The Venezuelan Amazon is subject to rampant violence and illegal activity driven by the political geography of gold in mixed configurations of governance, with blurred boundaries between legality and illegality and prevailing negligence concerning conservation. The Guianas share low deforestation levels and lower environmental pressures, but the recent expansion of gold mining poses a serious threat. The Brazilian case presented in the previous Chapter is referenced here when comparing countries’ experienes. Conservation experiences are also included. In all cases, unsustainable extractivist models have outpaced conservation policies; however, these experiences can prove useful in the design of effective conservation policies, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and improvements in living conditions of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
... However, the region still hosts endemic and endangered species, and it provides important connectivity between protected areas for several species (Payan-Garrido et al. 2013). Main land cover types are pasture (35%), wetlands (20%), oil palm plantations (19%), secondary forest (12%), water (10%), bare ground (3%), and urban areas (<1%) (Etter and van Wyngaarden 2000;Castiblanco et al. 2013;Boron et al. 2020). ...
... The 95% CIs of the three estimates were between 10.9 and 48.6. The extensive habitat loss that occurred in the Magdalena region due to oil palm plantations and cattle ranching (Castiblanco et al. 2013) could explain our lower ocelot densities albeit overlapping CIs. The latter does not necessarily prove a lack of differences but perhaps the precision of density estimates does not allow detection of such fine differences, which is expected considering the sparse data obtained in felid surveys (Payán 2013). ...
The ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) is a widely distributed, medium-sized felid in the Americas with declining population size. We estimated ocelot densities and home ranges in one agricultural area in the Magdalena River valley in Colombia, a private reserve and cattle ranch in the Colombian Llanos, and a private reserve in the Serra do Amolar in the Brazilian Pantanal. We used camera trapping (39–52 stations) and spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) models. Density estimates (individuals/100 km2) were 11.0 ± 2.7 (SE) in the Magdalena River valley; 13.2 ± 3.2 (SE) in the Llanos, and 10.3 ± 2.9 (SE) in the Serra do Amolar. Overall, despite an impact of agriculture and human disturbance, our results highlight the importance of unprotected areas and privately protected ranching areas for ocelot conservation. As agriculture continues to expand across the tropics causing habitat loss, and negatively affecting ocelot densities, we recommend land use planning and best agricultural practices to maintain natural habitats, thereby limiting human impacts on ocelot conservation.
... Migrant colonist agricultural systems, in general initially based on rice production, were also problematic, plagued by production and marketing problems, labor issues, and agronomic failure, with real problems of soil nutrient decline and low yields, using varieties and practices not adapted to local conditions, largely as a function of faulty extension and unadapted practices. These issues were exacerbated by titling insecurities, rural violence, very high colonist attrition rates, and high turnover (Hall 2000;Murphy 2001;Etter et al. There was also military environmentalism, as far as it went. ...
... Since the mid-2000s, palm oil has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide, 2017). Although palm oil plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) is an unprecedented initiative convened under the auspices of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The SPA is composed of over 200 preeminent scientists and researchers from the eight Amazonian countries, French Guiana, and global partners. These experts came together to debate, analyze, and assemble the accumulated knowledge of the scientific
community, Indigenous peoples, and other stakeholders that live and work in the Amazon.
The Panel is inspired by the Leticia Pact for the Amazon. This is a first-of-its-kind Report which provides a comprehensive, objective, open, transparent, systematic, and rigorous scientific assessment of the state of the Amazon’s ecosystems, current trends, and their implications for the long-term well-being of the region, as well as opportunities and policy
relevant options for conservation and sustainable development.
The three volumes of the final report can be downloaded from: https://www.theamazonwewant.org/amazon-assessment-report-2021/
... This contribution focused on the possible losses of RNC due to the expansion of seven agricultural production systems, under the assumption that these productive systems represent important threats to the remnant biomes of the Colombian Caribbean basins. Unfortunately, the lack of official information on the oil palm did not allow the evaluation of this production system [106]. Our results show that an expansion of Angleton grass production systems has the most negative impact and would generate 56 billion Int.$2020/year of new losses of NC. ...
... Since the mid-2000s, oil palm has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide 2017). Although oil palm plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has also been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of the deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
Deforestation (the complete removal of an area’s forest cover) and forest degradation (the significant loss of forest structure, functions, and processes) are the result of the interaction between various direct drivers, often operating together. By 2018, the Amazon forest had lost approximately 870,000 km² of its original cover, mainly due to expansion of agriculture and ranching. Other direct drivers of forest loss include the opening of new roads, construction of hydroelectric dams, exploitation of minerals and oil, and urbanization. Impacts of deforestation range from local to global, including local changes in landscape configuration, climate, and biodiversity, regional impacts on hydrological cycles, and global increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Of the remaining Amazonian forests, 17% are degraded, corresponding to 1,036,080 km². Forest degradation has various anthropogenic drivers, including understory fires, edge effects, selective logging, hunting, and climate change. Degraded forests have significantly different structure, microclimate, and biodiversity as compared to undisturbed ones. These forests tend to have higher tree mortality, lower carbon stocks, more canopy gaps, higher temperatures, lower humidity, higher wind exposure, and exhibit compositional and functional shifts in both fauna and flora. Degraded forests can come to resemble their undisturbed counterparts, but this depends on the type, duration, intensity, and frequency of the disturbance event. In some cases this may impede the return to a historic baseline. Avoiding further loss and degradation of Amazonian forests is crucial to ensuring that they continue to provide valuable and life-supporting ecosystem services.
KEYWORDS: deforestation; forest degradation; wildfires; edge effects; logging
... The biosphere integrity represents a high-risk zone, which could provoke loss of functional diversity and genetic diversity ( Figure 3). In Indonesia and Malaysia, the massive ex-pansion of oil palm growing, based into the deforestation of millions of hectares of primary and secondary forest caused pollution and reduced biodiversity [36,37]. By contrast, in Latin America, 79% of the expansion of oil palm cultivation has taken place in areas of pasture, cropland and banana crops. ...
Dialectic interactions between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG´s), the 2030 Agenda, planetary boundaries (PB) and good agricultural practices (GAP) in agroecosystems with oil palm have rarely been discussed. The main goal of this publication is analyzing reflections and realities about interactions between the 17 SDGs, the 2030 Agenda, nine PB and GAP in agroecosystems with oil palm. The methodological approach included the results of the different field practices during the First International Course of agroecological oil palm production in the Soconusco and consisted of a documentary analysis and focus group discussions. This offered possibilities to analyze qualitative and participative results of the traffic light system methodology (TLSM) and its key issues. The area of oil palm growing in the Soconusco and Istmo-Costa covers 4.37 % and was planted without burning of forestland. The SDG´s that are most strengthened with correct and timely management of the 13 key issues of TLSM, are: SDG2 (Zero Hunger), SDG3 (Good Health), SDG15 (Life on Earth), SDG6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG13 (Climate Action) and SDG1 (Ending Poverty), being addressed in 100%, 69%, 69%, 54%, 54% and 31% of the key issues of the TLSM, respectively. Five PB reflect the realities in the Soconusco. For the biosphere integrity in the oil palm agroecosystems of the Soconusco, the oil palm stands out with growth recordings up to 10 m eco-height and 100000 m³/ha eco-volume, outperforming the annual oil crops sunflower, rapeseed and soybean. Similarly, oil palm dominates the three annual crops for their respective Eco-capacity, decreasing from 41.54 for oil palm down to 0.3 for soybean. The biochemical flow in the oil palm agroecosystems of the Soconusco reveals that the extraction of N from the soil to produce one ton of palm oil is 47 kg, which is 110.6%, 104.3% and 570% lower than that extracted to produce one ton oil of rapeseed, sunflower and soybean, respectively. Additionally, one ton of palm oil extracts 8 kg of P from the soil, which is lesser than that extracted to produce one ton oil from rapeseed, sunflower and soybean. In all intercropping agroecosystems simulations in the Soconusco based on oil palm the most representative indicators of the combined intercrop assortment, are eco-capacity and/or recycling indices as e.g. the K-Olson index of total yearly litter fall. Eco-volume remains a major yardstick for monitoring the partial fulfillment of the five most relevant PB.
... As the global population continues to grow, it is estimated that demand for vegetable oils will increase to nine billion people by 2050 (Nelson et al., 2010). Consumers may switch to vegetable oils containing trans fats due to health concerns (World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, 2015) and demand for biofuel blends will increase due to concerns about climate change (Castiblanco et al., 2013). When calculated, oil palm produces the highest oil per unit of land in the world (Carter et al., 2007). ...
The area of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has increased over time. The growth of oil palm plantations even exceeds the percentage of the area of paddy fields, especially in Gunung Mas Regency. This phenomenon is accompanied by the implementation of "Regional Regulation No. 1 of 2020 concerning Land Fire Control". The regulation aims to prevent land fires due to human activities. However, local people believe that burning can increase land productivity. As a result, many people convert their land to plant oil palm, because it is considered to guarantee economic improvement compared to paddy fields. Remote sensing satellite imagery is the basis and main source in the analysis. With spatio-temporal analysis, mapping of land use changes in a certain period of time and its relationship with the distribution of agricultural wet and dry areas. As a result, the proportion of palm oil land in Gunung Mas Regency is higher than the proportion of paddy fields. If oil palm expansion continues in the future, agricultural drought could become more widespread. Keywords: Expansion of oil palm, Land use change, Paddy Fields, Remote sensing, Spatio-Temporal Analysis
... Guatemala (Alonso-Fradejas, 2007), Nicaragua (Madriz, 2011), México (Ávila et al., 2014), Honduras (Macías, 2001), Perú (Gutiérrez-Vélez, 2011), Colombia (Castiblanco et al., 2013), Brasil, Costa Rica y Ecuador (López y Landívar, 2009), entre otros. Dichos estudios narran la complejidad que tiene la biodiversidad animal y vegetal para sobrevivir en dichas condiciones adversas que significa la producción basada en los monocultivos de palma. ...
En este artículo se analiza el crecimiento del cultivo de la palma de aceite en la región mesoamericana y sus impactos socio-ambientales. El aumento de las plantaciones ha llevado a la concentración de tierras y recursos productivos, impulsado por el capitalismo global y la presencia de capitales transnacionales que modifican el paisaje y la biodiversidad. Las respuestas campesinas e indígenas varían según el país. En Colombia, Guatemala y Honduras, ha habido una fuerte confrontación con las empresas, resultando en pérdida de vidas y condenas por parte de organismos de derechos humanos. En México, la respuesta ha sido más sutil, mediante una “asociación-cooptación” con la estructura campesina regional, permitiendo un desarrollo consensuado en áreas como Soconusco, Palenque y Marqués de Comillas en Chiapas. Sin embargo, en Campeche, nuevos actores con mayor capital y grandes extensiones de tierra están rompiendo esta práctica consensuada, acercándose al fenómeno de land grabbing visto en África, Sudamérica y Asia.
... Oil palm plantations have even been reported in areas within Los Katios National Park, where we confirmed the presence of the taxon. The expansion of African oil palm cultivation is projected in other areas near this and other National Parks (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Ocampo-Peñuela et al., 2018). Nationally, forest cover loss due to the extraction of gold and other precious metals, including silver and platinum, is highest in the Pacific lowlands in addition to having several areas with mining potential planned for the country's strategic mining reserve zones (Servicio Geológico Colombiano, 2012). ...
Knowledge of the geographic distributions of species is fundamental for conservation management. Ateles fusciceps rufiventris is currently listed as Vulnerable. It is found in Colombia and Panamá and may be present in Ecuador. It has been subject to very few studies and its true current conservation status is unknown. We used 3 years of interviews and field observations to determine its current distribution in Colombia, complemented with searches of the literature and databases for the entire range. We evaluated the quality of available habitat using a publicly available data layer of forest integrity information and niche modeling. We estimated the original and current extent of occurrence (EOO) of the taxon based on an ecological niche model (ENM) using MaxEnt and calculated the area of occupancy (AOO) for Colombia, where we conducted field sampling. We also identified the main threats to the subspecies during our interviews and field observations. Of the 39 sites we visited, we confirmed the presence of A. f. rufiventris by direct observation or secondary information at 15 (38%), although all sites had potential habitat for the subspecies. We estimated that the EOO of A. f. rufiventris in Colombia covers 118,730 km² and that forests in the potential habitat have reduced by ~ 60% in the last 30 years, leaving an estimated current AOO in Colombia of ~ 17,800 km² to ~ 47,000 km², with just 11% in state-protected areas. Interviews and field observations showed that clearcutting for agriculture and cattle ranching were the most frequent threats at sites where we found no evidence of the subspecies. Illegal crops, hunting for subsistence and trade, including as pets, were the most frequent threats at sites where we found the subspecies. We found a dramatic reduction in suitable habitat and a high incidence of forest degradation, deforestation, and hunting affecting the subspecies. Conservation efforts should focus on restoration in strategic areas, and on reducing deforestation and hunting pressure. Community-based conservation could be employed to increase areas of protected habitat on communal lands and decrease hunting pressure, to ensure the long-term survival of this highly threatened primate.
... Predictions can be used as diagnostic tools for the effects of various inputs that can be associated with policies or interventions targeted at specific variables. Oil palm cultivation has been expanding in the country, favoured by the national policy of subsidized credit, mandatory biodiesel blends and tax exemptions [38,60,61]. These actions enter the model as positive inputs on CB, and variations expected in the level of the model's variables are listed in the last row of the table of predictions (figure 1b). ...
In Colombia, the long-lasting internal conflict heavily shaped the socio-ecological context and imposed relationships that persisted after the peace agreement was signed in 2016. One question of interest is whether policies or interventions conceived to attain desirable goals for the post-conflict society may be effective or, rather, if the constraints imposed by the conflict scenario might produce unintended effects, either on the environmental or the social side. To explore this issue, we envisaged the socio-ecological system as a parsimonious set of characteristic ecological and social variables within the conflict-related framework and reconstructed their interactions, exploiting elicitation-based information and the literature. We visualized the resulting interactive networks as signed digraphs. Applying the qualitative technique of loop analysis combined with numerical simulations, we predicted the response of the system to policies as drivers of change, such as subsidized credit to capital-intensive activities or policies that increase small farming competitiveness and access to markets. Highlighting causal linkages reveals that the persistence of conflict factors may produce unexpected interdependencies between licit and illicit activities and that, only in a few cases, the persistence of these mechanisms allows synergies between desirable goals.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Connected interactions: enriching food web research by spatial and social interactions’.
... At the plot level, most agriculture tends to occur in flat areas at low elevations with gentle slopes. This result is consistent with previous findings that cash crops are mainly grown in non-edge and flat locations [70,71] However, facility farms tend to be organized on plots with greater slopes. This is due to China's strict farmland protection policy, which prevents facility agriculture from occupying flat, high-quality farmland, requiring it to make greater use of woodlands, gardens, and other plots of land with a certain degree of slope. ...
Facility agriculture is an important initiative to adopt an all-encompassing approach to food and build a diversified food supply system. Understanding the evolution of facility agricultural land and the factors that drive it can contribute to the development of scientifically strategic agricultural planning and agricultural modernization. Therefore, this paper constructs a “situation-structure-behavior-value” theoretical framework; quantifies the relevant driving factors (physical, proximal, and socioeconomic) and their impacts on the development and layout of facility agriculture land by using a multivariate logistic regression model; and provides a strategy for optimizing land use. The results showed that the area of facility agriculture in Huzhou is rapidly expanding. Regarding drivers, facility agricultural land tends to be located in areas with higher slopes according to plot selection. Facility agriculture is more likely to develop in plots with convenient transportation and closer proximity to markets. At the economic level, economic efficiency, agricultural resource superiority, and policies significantly impact facility agriculture expansion. Finally, we propose three land use policy options to facilitate the sustainable development of facility agriculture. This study elucidates the underlying factors driving different types of facility agricultural land and offers methodological guidance for policy support, planning, control, and optimization strategies for facility agriculture.
... Thus, accessibility to cities is important. Several studies have linked oil palm's expansion with distance to palm oil extraction centers, roads, ports, population centers, and settlements (Austin et al., 2015;Castiblanco et al., 2013;Sumarga & Hein, 2016). A study by Pirker et al. (2016) shows that around 18 % of global oil palm is within 2 h of access to major cities. ...
Oil palm is the dominant global oil crop due to its high productivity and diversified usage in many sectors. Since the late 20 th century, oil palm cultivations proliferated in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Latin America. However, global market factors, different national and regional policies, and smallholder versus commercial planting regimes in different areas lead to significant differences in economic benefits and environmental problems from deforestation and loss of biodiversity. We investigated changes in global and national distributions against suitability and indices of tree age distribution change for industrial oil palm (IOP) and smallholder oil palm (SOP). Spatial and temporal change analyses show that: i) For most tree ages, the proportion of global oil palm planting in suitable areas was less than 50%, but the impact of temporal regimes, from possible market factors and local policies, on planting structure should not be neglected; ii) Central America, South America, and West Africa were less suitable for oil palm cultivation compared to Southeast Asia. While, as two dominant oil palm planting countries, Indonesia and Malaysia had relatively low planting suitability, with 39.23% of Indo-nesia's IOP, 44.85% of Indonesia's SOP, 30.90% of Malaysia's IOP and 18.77% of Malaysia's SOP in highly and most suitable intervals; iii) There exist clear differences between IOP and SOP in terms of suitability, planting structure and spatial expansion patterns; iv) Hysteresis effect exists between latecomers (countries in West Africa and Latin America) and forerunner (Indonesia and Malaysia) in terms of spatial expansion; v) The spatial expansion patterns of oil palm planting centers have obvious scale effects for both IOP and SOP, with clear inter-country and intra-country differences. This paper reinterprets the global distribution of tree age and spatial expansion pattern and recommends scientific strategies to guide site selection and planting structure that enable oil palm cultivation for sustainable development.
... Since the late 1970s, deforestation in the Colombian Amazon has been driven by colonization, agriculture expansion, cattle raising and coca expansion (Castiblanco et al., 2013;García, 2013;Perz et al., 2005;Ruiz et al., 2011). However, since the signing of the Peace Accords between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla and the national government in 2016, the Colombian Amazon basin has experienced a significant increase in forest loss due to a combination of historical and novel deforestation drivers (EIA, 2019;Global Forest Watch, 2020;González et al., 2018;Revelo-Rebolledo, 2019;Van Dexter & Visseren-Hamakers, 2020). ...
The Colombian Amazon has experienced rapid forest loss in the past decades due to growing colonization, infrastructure development, and commercial agriculture expansion. While much of the analyses of deforestation in the Amazon have been in Brazil, there is a need to extend to Colombia where forest and land use exploitation are driven by post-conflict social and political dynamics. This research contributes to this knowledge gap by unpacking the mechanisms underpinning deforestation on the northwestern side of the Colombian Amazon. We used theory-building process-tracing to guide us in conceptualizing the underlying logics of deforestation in the region through qualitative text analysis of policy documents, articles, reports, and grey literature, and virtual semi-structured interviews with key national, regional and local actors. Findings indicate that the power vacuum resulting from the demobilization of FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), Marxist-Leninist guerrillas, acted as a window of opportunity for peasants, squatters, narco-traffickers, cattle ranchers, landlords, and other investors to access public lands and capitalize from converting forests to coca crops and pastures for cattle ranching. Accumulation of land and surplus primarily from cattle ranching and coca production has increased the ability of these actors to reshape the landscape and societal structures. Traditional elites and old and emerging narco-bourgeoisie have capitalized on preexisting power asymmetries by disproportionally accumulating land, money, gun power, influence, and prestige seeking to consolidate territorial hegemony, and controlling the means for material reproduction in society. Powerful actors use their resources and prestige to displace historically marginalized groups – such as indigenous communities, peasants and squatters – from their means of subsistence and production, resulting in the installation of a capitalist economy based on land rent and drug trafficking, where less powerful and marginalized actors engage in deforestation as means for capital accumulation and subsidizing their peasant and subsistence economies. All this has deepened forest loss, inequalities, and conflict over land access between actors.
... These indigenous peoples face today are ecological degradation, occupation of their territories by non-Indigenous people, lack of lands to sustain the Indigenous population, and cultural clashes caused by the incursion of industries and foreigners into their lands (Sanchez, 2007;Finer et al., Qeios, CC-BY 4. This contribution focused on the possible losses of remnant natural capital due to the expansion of nine agricultural production systems, under the assumption that these productive systems represent important threats to the remnant biomes of the Colombian Pacific Basin. Unfortunately, the lack of official information on the oil palm did not allow the evaluation of this production system (Castiblanco et al., 2013). Our results show that an expansion of beef production systems has the most negative impact and would generate 8.3 billion Int.$2020/year of new losses of natural capital. ...
The Pacific region is considered a biodiversity hotspot and presents high species endemic levels. The Colombian Pacific basin occupies an area of approximately eight million hectares, located in the country’s west. The literature about the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and the spatial information on natural resources in the Colombian Pacific basin was revised through various information sources to document the earliest approximation to the state, spatial distribution, and economic value of the natural capital at the scale of biomes, specific ecosystems, and political-administrative units. Our assessment estimated a natural capital loss of 40 billion Int.2020/year (51% of Colombia’s GDP in 2020) for 15 ecosystem services. This research establishes that a potential expansion in livestock production systems will generate an additional loss of natural capital between six and eight billion Int.2020/year. Lastly, the policy challenges and gaps in research and management concerning this remaining natural capital in the Colombian Pacific basin are pointed out.
... These indigenous peoples face today are ecological degradation, occupation of their territories by non-Indigenous people, lack of lands to sustain the Indigenous population, and cultural clashes caused by the incursion of industries and foreigners into their lands (Sanchez, 2007;Finer et al., Qeios, CC-BY 4. This contribution focused on the possible losses of remnant natural capital due to the expansion of nine agricultural production systems, under the assumption that these productive systems represent important threats to the remnant biomes of the Colombian Pacific Basin. Unfortunately, the lack of official information on the oil palm did not allow the evaluation of this production system (Castiblanco et al., 2013). Our results show that an expansion of beef production systems has the most negative impact and would generate 8.3 billion Int.$2020/year of new losses of natural capital. ...
The Pacific region is considered a biodiversity hotspot and presents high species endemic levels. The Colombian Pacific basin occupies an area of approximately eight million hectares, located in the country’s west. The literature about the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and the spatial information on natural resources in the Colombian Pacific basin was revised through various information sources to document the earliest approximation to the state, spatial distribution, and economic value of the natural capital at the scale of biomes, specific ecosystems, and political-administrative units. Our assessment estimated a natural capital loss of 40 billion Int.2020/year (51% of Colombia’s GDP in 2020) for 15 ecosystem services. This research establishes that a potential expansion in livestock production systems will generate an additional loss of natural capital between six and eight billion Int.2020/year. Lastly, the policy challenges and gaps in research and management concerning this remaining natural capital in the Colombian Pacific basin are pointed out.
... These indigenous peoples face today are ecological degradation, occupation of their territories by non-Indigenous people, lack of lands to sustain the Indigenous population, and cultural clashes caused by the incursion of industries and foreigners into their lands (Sanchez, 2007;Finer et al., Qeios, CC-BY 4. This contribution focused on the possible losses of remnant natural capital due to the expansion of nine agricultural production systems, under the assumption that these productive systems represent important threats to the remnant biomes of the Colombian Pacific Basin. Unfortunately, the lack of official information on the oil palm did not allow the evaluation of this production system (Castiblanco et al., 2013). Our results show that an expansion of beef production systems has the most negative impact and would generate 8.3 billion Int.$2020/year of new losses of natural capital. ...
The Pacific region is considered a biodiversity hotspot and presents high species endemic levels. The Colombian Pacific basin occupies an area of approximately eight million hectares, located in the country’s west. The literature about the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and the spatial information on natural resources in the Colombian Pacific basin was revised through various information sources to document the earliest approximation to the state, spatial distribution, and economic value of the natural capital at the scale of biomes, specific ecosystems, and political-administrative units. Our assessment estimated a natural capital loss of 40 billion Int.2020/year (51% of Colombia’s GDP in 2020) for 15 ecosystem services. This research establishes that a potential expansion in livestock production systems will generate an additional loss of natural capital between six and eight billion Int.2020/year. Lastly, the policy challenges and gaps in research and management concerning this remaining natural capital in the Colombian Pacific basin are pointed out.
... Although these protected areas cover significant portions of the species' potential range, it is not distributed in the entirety of each park, and even these protected areas suffer from deforestation and hunting (Hansen et al. 2013). Within Los Katios National Park, there are projected areas for expansion of African palm cultivation (Ocampo-Peñuela et al. 2018;Castiblanco et al. 2013). In Panama, we failed to find the species in several well-preserved protected areas (Méndez-Carvajal 2012, 2014, 2019. ...
The Panamanian owl monkey (Aotus zonalis) is found from northern Coclé to Darién provinces in Panama, south through the Pacific lowlands of the Chocó biogeographic region, to just north of the Ecuadorian border in Colombia. It is currently listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Although much captive research has been conducted, little is known about the current status of wild populations or the species’ actual distribution. We review knowledge of the species conservation ecology and evaluate new data on the presence/absence at 60 sites in Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador and report on anthropogenic activities which may threaten its survival. In combination with the results of previous studies, we found that the species habitat is being reduced by anthropogenic forest clearance, leaving some populations fragmented and susceptible to hunting. Aotus zonalis remains one of the least known primates, and information is needed on its behavior, population dynamics, and ecology.
... Estas estrategias construyeron un paisaje agrícola resiliente para la fauna y la flora locales, la provisión de servicios ecosistémicos y para atender a cualquier desastre natural y al cambio climático (Agrawal et al., 2014). Cabe mencionar que hoy en día en Colombia, la expansión de la palma de aceite se ha producido principalmente en pastos en ecosistemas anteriormente alterados en lugar de tierras boscosas (Etter et al., 2013). Estos suelos ofrecen una oportunidad para mejorar las condiciones del ecosistema y la producción agrícola, por lo tanto, las plantaciones sostenibles de palma de aceite con las HGP como la cobertura del suelo, la reforestación y los corredores biológicos contribuyen a la conectividad del paisaje y al aumento de los servicios ecosistémicos (p. ...
In Colombia, oil palm is an important economic sector of the agroindustry. One of its main challenges is to simultaneously ensure palm oil production growth and maintain and improve the local environment and a sustainable agricultural landscape. Thus, we conducted a landscape analysis on an exemplary palm oil plantation to assess the landscape structure and complexity, and land-use change between 2009 and 2019. The case study is done in the Macondo oil palm plantation, located in Mapiripán, Meta, in the eastern zone of Colombia with a total area of 5,853 hectares. The landscape analysis is based on a 2009 land cover maps GIS analysis. First, the land cover map of the plantation was divided into grid cells of 500 by 500 meters. Second, we applied landscape metrics for the landscape structure assessment and calculated a k-means cluster analysis. The grid cells were clustered into nine (9) similarity groups based on landscape metrics. Four (4) squares per group, in a total of 36, were selected as a sample of the plantation. For each selected square, we took aerial photography at a height of 100 meters to create the orthophotos. The aerial photographs were taken using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), in this case, a DJI drone, and enabled us to take over 10,800 aerial photographs in 10 days. Aerial photography provides detailed and up-to-date information on land cover and land use change, which is essential for monitoring and decision-making. This type of landscape analysis enables managers of oil palm plantations to monitor land cover change and the implemented Landscape Management Tools (LMT) within the plantation.
... Estas estrategias construyeron un paisaje agrícola resiliente para la fauna y la flora locales, la provisión de servicios ecosistémicos y para atender a cualquier desastre natural y al cambio climático (Agrawal et al., 2014). Cabe mencionar que hoy en día en Colombia, la expansión de la palma de aceite se ha producido principalmente en pastos en ecosistemas anteriormente alterados en lugar de tierras boscosas (Etter et al., 2013). Estos suelos ofrecen una oportunidad para mejorar las condiciones del ecosistema y la producción agrícola, por lo tanto, las plantaciones sostenibles de palma de aceite con las HGP como la cobertura del suelo, la reforestación y los corredores biológicos contribuyen a la conectividad del paisaje y al aumento de los servicios ecosistémicos (p. ...
... Other studies have used multiple explanatory variables to understand forest conversion to agriculture and how the spatial distribution and importance of variables drive land use change. These include anthropogenic factors (such as distance to residential areas and roads) and topographical conditions (such as elevation and slope) (Mitsuda and Ito, 2011;Castiblanco et al., 2013). ...
... The most extensive land use is cattle grazing on natural Savannah grasslands (Benavides 2010). However, agricultural activities such as oil palm cultivation have become important industries in the region in part due to government incentives (Vargas et al. 2015) and are foreseen to continue increasing (Castiblanco, Etter, and Aide 2013). Five forms of agriculture likely to influence the future of the region include livestock, palm oil, forestry, rice, and soy (DNP 2014). ...
The Orinoco basin is one of the most important hydrologic systems in South America. The Colombian Orinoco basin occupies an area of approx. thirty-four million hectares, located in the country's east. The literature about the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and the spatial information on natural resources in the Colombian Orinoco basin was revised through various information sources to document the earliest approximation to the state, spatial distribution, and economic value of the natural capital at the scale of biomes, specific ecosystems, and political-administrative units. Our assessment estimated a natural capital loss of 200 billion Int.2020/year (more than 100% of Colombia's GDP in 2020) for twelve ecosystem services. This research proves that a potential expansion in livestock production systems will generate an additional loss of natural capital of approximately 282 billion Int.2020/year. Lastly, the policy challenges and gaps in research and management concerning this remaining natural capital in the Colombian Orinoco basin are pointed out.
... The Chinese economy highly depends on agriculture and it is estimated that more than 29.4 million hectares of land were being used as paddy land to grow rice (Peng et al., 2009). At the end of the 19th century, the global market demand for cash crops (vegetables and fruits) expanded rapidly (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Zhang et al., 2014), in addition to reduce agricultural effluent water pollution, and increase the sustainability of agricultural production many paddy lands (PL) were converted into dry land (DL) (Jiao et al., 2017;Wu et al., 2017). ...
Agricultural land use changes are essential in addressing global urbanization demands. The improper management of agricultural land may lead to the alteration of the microbial ecosystem, which ultimately affects soil quality. Here, we assessed how soil microbial diversity, communities, and physicochemical properties in three layers of soil; upper (0-15 cm), middle (15-30 cm), and lower (30-45 cm), responded to a long-term land use change from paddy land (PL) to dry land of different chronosequences; PD3 (3 years), PD5 (5 years), and PD10 (10 years). We found PL conversion into dry lands increased soil pH, soil 3 phase R-value, bulk density (BD), organic matter (OM), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and decreased electrical conductivity (EC), water holding capacity (WHC), and moisture content (MC) in all three layers. The land use change from PL to dry lands initially (PD3) decreased (11-25 %) bacterial diversity, while it significantly increased in PD5 (0.1-16 %), and PD10 (1-14 %) in all three layers. Unlike bacterial diversity, fungal diversity was high in PD5 in the upper layer, while the middle and lower layer was the least affected. We also found the conversion of PL to dry land altered relative abundance (RA) of bacteria on the upper layer, while RA of fungi was reshaped in all three layers. The Pearson's correlation coefficient showed that MC, OM, pH, R-value, TN, TP, and WHC were important physicochemical factors, which significantly (P < 0.05) influenced Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria, and Basidiomycota composition. Briefly, our study show that land use change initially (3 years) caused huge changes in the microbiome, which improved somehow in further years (5 and 10 years), and we conclude that land use changes impact positively on functional biodiversity and biological quality of the soil.
... This oversight is problematic because the Llanos, like other savanna ecosystems around the globe, are threatened by renewed interests in arable land for agriculture (Andrade et al., 2013;Gücker et al., 2009;Lavelle et al., 2014;Veldman et al., 2015). Drastic land-use change due to mechanized agriculture, extensive monocultures of oil palm or seasonal crops, and massive afforestation projects using exotic timber species is jeopardizing the ecological stability and resilience of the Llanos (Castiblanco, 2014;Castiblanco et al., 2013;Romero-Ruiz et al., 2012;Vargas et al., 2015). In fact, if land transformation of the Colombian Llanos remains unregulated, ecosystem integrity may be lost through irreversible changes in the composition of its biodiversity (Andrade et al., 2013;Romero-Ruiz et al., 2012). ...
The Altillanura is a unique ecosystem within the Colombian Llanos, characterized by well-drained savannas and extensive riparian forests. The Altillanura harbors a rich assemblage of species, largely understudied and currently under threat by large-scale and unplanned agribusiness. Moreover, the number of public protected areas in the Colombian Llanos, particularly in the Altillanura, is insufficient to conserve the threatened habitats and species. Therefore, conservation efforts by private reserves are crucial for the protection of the region’s biodiversity. Here we present the first species list of the Tomogrande, a private nature reserve and scientific research field station in the municipality of Santa Rosalía, Vichada, Colombia. After ten years of ongoing research, we have recorded 299 species of plants, 189 species of birds, and 47 species of mammals. Compared to other private nature reserves in Vichada and the Tuparro National Park, the largest protected area in the region, Tomogrande makes a substantial contribution to the conservation of all three taxonomic groups. We advocate that better landscape planning and sustainable practices should become mandatory in the Altillanura to protect its biodiversity and the livelihoods of all stakeholders that inhabit this region.
... Since the mid-2000s, palm oil has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide, 2017). Although palm oil plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
This Report provides a comprehensive, objective, open, transparent, systematic, and rigorous scientific assessment of the state of the Amazon’s ecosystems, current trends, and their implications for the long-term well-being of the region, as well as opportunities and policy relevant options for conservation and sustainable development.
... We identified large differences in yield among plantations, suggesting substantial yield gaps. Depending on the cause(s) of these differences, it is possible that yield could be improved considerably in many plantations in this study, potentially facilitating productivity increase without further land-use change. In theory, such yield improvements could help conserve rainforest in Southeast Asia and other tropical regions Castiblanco et al. 2013;Greenpeace, 2012;Vijay et al. 2016;Wilcove et al. 2013). However, improving crop yields can lead to greater incentives for expansion, owing to higher returns from land-use change Carrasco et al. 2014), particularly if markets are elastic (i.e., demands increase as the price decreases) (Hertel 2012). ...
Background
Oil palm is a key driver of deforestation, but increasing yields in existing plantations could help meet rising global demands, while avoiding further conversion of natural habitat. Current oil palm plantations present substantial opportunities for sustainable intensification, but the potential for local yield improvements depends partly on the role of climate in determining yield.
Methods
We determine the importance of local climatic conditions for oil palm yields in 12 commercial plantations in Peninsular and East Malaysia (Borneo), during 2006–2017. We quantify relationships between climatic conditions (raw and anomalised monthly temperature and rainfall data) and yield for lag times up to 36 months prior to harvest, corresponding to key stages in oil palm fruit development.
Results
Overall, climatic conditions explained < 1% of the total variation in yield. In contrast, variation in yield among plantations accounted for > 50% of the explained variation in yield (of total R ² = 0.38; median annual fresh fruit bunch yield 16.4–31.6 t/ha). The main climatic driver of yield was a positive effect of maximum monthly temperature during inflorescence development (Spearman’s Rho = 0.30), suggesting that insufficient solar radiation is the main climatic constraint to yield in our study sites. We also found positive impacts of rainfall during key stages of fruit development (infloresence abortion and sex determination: Spearman’s Rho 0.06 and 0.08 respectively, for rainfall anomalies), suggesting minor effects of water-limitation on yield; and a negative impact of maximum temperature during the month of harvest (Spearman’s Rho – 0.14 for temperature anomalies), suggesting possible heat stress impacts on plantation workers.
Conclusions
Our findings imply a relatively minor role of climate in determining yield, and potentially substantial yield gaps in some commercial plantations in Malaysia (possibly up to ~ 50%). Thus, there appear to be substantial opportunities for improving oil palm yield in existing plantations in Malaysia, with further research needed to identify the drivers of such yield gaps.
... In the lead-producing countries, the environmental impacts are also associated with deforestation, biodiversity loss, land-use change, soil quality, landscape deterioration, and greenhouse gas emissions by removing carbon stock from the soil [7]. In Colombia, the situation is different because the oil palm has been correlated with the conversion of scrublands, croplands, and savannas [8][9][10]. The solid biomass from POM is composed of empty fruit bunches (EFB) in a mass ratio of 22 to hydrocarbons (AHs) formation. ...
The effect of zinc sulfate as a catalyst on the pyrolysis of empty fruit bunches (EFB) from oil palm was assessed. Thus, a thermo-gravimetric analyzer coupled with a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR) was used, while the percentage of catalyst varied between 0 wt% and 3 wt% at different heating rates (10, 30, and 50 K/min). The kinetic parameters (activation energy, pre-exponential factor, and reaction order) and activation energy distribution were calculated using three kinetic models. The thermogravimetric curves for the EFB pyrolysis showed three prominent peaks in which the maximum mass loss rate was mainly due to cellulose and lignin pyrolysis. On the other hand, FTIR analysis indicated that the main gaseous products were CO2, CO, H2O, CH4, NH3, acids, and aldehydes (CH3COOH). The samples with 2 wt% of catalyst presented higher activation energies in pseudo reactions 1 and 2, ranging between 181,500 kJ/mol–184,000 kJ/mol and 165,200 kJ/mol–165,600 kJ/mol, respectively. It was highlighted that the first pseudo reaction with an activation energy range between 179,500 kJ/mol and 184,000 kJ/mol mainly contributes to the cellulose pyrolysis, and the second pseudo reaction (165,200 kJ/mol–165,600 kJ/mol) could be ascribed to the hemicellulose pyrolysis.
... It would be a challenge to protect an entire sub-basin without considering the needs of its inhabitants; thus, conservation strategies must be implemented that both protect and allow a certain amount of use (Abell et al., 2007). Freshwater systems face inherent challenges, such as those caused by hydroelectric power plants (Finer and Jenkins, 2012) and by the exploitation or use of natural resources for human subsistence (Boron et al., 2019;Castiblanco et al., 2013), which are especially difficult to handle considering protected areas allow no human intervention (Abell et al., 2008). Some of the conservation efforts for this species have suggested to conduct reintroductions, but these proposals are expensive, tedious, and ineffective (Mancera- Rodríguez, 2017). ...
One of the main challenges in conservation biogeography of freshwater fishes is the improvement of conservation planning strategies. Nonetheless, the implementation of such strategies has lagged in freshwater systems, limiting their protection to the priorities of land organisms. Since the repercussions and relative importance for conservation across freshwater species can vary tremendously, and the application of such strategies requires information on multiple species, it is valuable to consider extensible and straightforward approaches that can be applied to single species. Here we use a freshwater fish species native to the Colombian Andes (Brycon henni) as a model to implement a methodology for spatial conservation prioritization considering four criteria: i) representativeness (protection of species distribution), ii) viability (maximizing probability of success), iii) complementarity (recognition of the currently protected area network), and iv) connectivity (promoting connectivity amongst protected areas). Using the proposed methodology based on the potential distribution of B. henni and hydrographic sub-basins as planning units, we recommend the protection of nine sub-basins climatically suitable for the species and with strategic river corridors that would promote the connection amongst basins and the currently protected areas. This methodological proposal can contribute to the current strategy design implemented by the National System of Protected Areas in Colombia to conserve or recover ecosystems and fragmented natural habitats, providing design options that meet ecological and socioeconomic objectives. Lastly, we consider that the methodology proposed here could be used with a more significant number of species of interest and implemented on a regional and global scale.
... Palm oil and cocoa plantations have also expanded across the South American continent (Furumo and Aide, 2017;Graesser et al., 2015). Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are three of the largest 10 global producers of palm oil (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Gutiérrez-Vélez et al., 2011) ...
Changes in global land cover (LC) have significant consequences for global environmental change, impacting the sustainability of biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and food security. Different forms of LC change have taken place across the world in recent decades due to a combination of natural and anthropogenic drivers, however, the types of change and rates of change have traditionally been hard to quantify. This thesis exploits the properties of the recently released ESA-CCI-LC product – an internally consistent, high-resolution annual time-series of global LC extending from 1992 to 2018. Specifically, this thesis uses a combination of trajectories and transition maps to quantify LC changes over time at national, continental and global scales, in order to develop a deeper understanding of what, where and when significant changes in LC have taken place and relates these to natural and anthropogenic drivers. This thesis presents three analytical chapters that contribute to achieving the objectives and the overarching aim of the thesis. The first analytical chapter initially focuses on the Nile Delta region of Egypt, one of the most densely populated and rapidly urbanising regions globally, to quantify historic rates of urbanisation across the fertile agricultural land, before modelling a series of alternative futures in which these lands are largely protected from future urban expansion. The results show that 74,600 hectares of fertile agricultural land in the Nile Delta (Old Lands) was lost to urban expansion between 1992 and 2015. Furthermore, a scenario that encouraged urban expansion into the desert and adjacent to areas of existing high population density could be achieved, hence preserving large areas of fertile agricultural land within the Nile Delta. The second analytical chapter goes on to examine LC changes across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a complex and diverse environment, through the joint lenses of political regions and ecoregions, differentiating between natural and anthropogenic signals of change and relating to likely drivers. The results reveal key LC change processes at a range of spatial scales, and identify hotspots of LC change. The major five key LC change processes were: (i) “gain of dry forests” covered the largest extent and was distributed across the whole of SSA; (ii) “greening of deserts” found adjacent to desert areas (e.g., the Sahel belt); (iii) “loss of tree-dominated savanna” extending mainly across South-eastern Africa; (iv) “loss of shrub-dominated savanna” stretching across West Africa, and “loss of tropical rainforests” unexpectedly covering the smallest extent, mainly in the DRC, West Africa and Madagascar. The final analytical chapter considers LC change at the global scale, providing a comprehensive assessment of LC gains and losses, trajectories and transitions, including a complete assessment of associated uncertainties. This chapter highlights variability between continents and identifies locations of high LC dynamism, recognising global hotspots for sustainability challenges. At the national scale, the chapter identifies the top 10 countries with the largest percentages of forest loss and urban expansion globally. The results show that the majority of these countries have stabilised their forest losses, however, urban expansion was consistently on the rise in all countries. The thesis concludes with recommendations for future research as global LC products become more refined (spatially, temporally and thematically) allowing deeper insights into the causes and consequences of global LC change to be determined.
... Since the mid-2000s, palm oil has become a growing threat to Amazonian forests, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon (Furumo and Aide, 2017). Although palm oil plantations often replace other agricultural land uses, especially cattle ranching, it has been documented directly replacing primary forests (Castiblanco et al. 2013;de Almeida et al. 2020;Gutiérrez-Vélez and DeFries 2013). For example, between 2007 and 2013, 11% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was driven by oil palm plantations (Vijay et al. 2018). ...
This chapter discusses the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the Amazon, particularly agricultural expansion, road construction, mining, oil and gas development, forest fires, edge effects, logging, and hunting. It also examines these activities’ impacts and synergies between them.
... Multivariate logistic regression modeling is widely used in the analysis of deforestation patterns, including those due to oil palm expansion, potentially showing the relative influences of different determinants on the probability of expansion (Gaveau et al 2009, Castiblanco et al 2013, Austin et al 2015, Shevade and Loboda 2019. We used this model approach to estimate the probability that the current (2019) land cover is closed-canopy smallholder oil palm in areas that were peat swamp forest in 1990. ...
Protecting tropical peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia is critical for addressing global sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. However, more than half of these forests have been lost since 1990 due to the rapid expansion of drainage-based agriculture and forestry. Within the oil palm sector, regional smallholder oil palm plantings on peat soils have risen quickly. These activities are challenging to govern and manage due to the numerous farmers and fragmented nature. It is imperative to understand the spatial distribution and drivers of smallholder oil palm-related conversion of peat swamp forests. In contrast to existing studies based on farm surveys, we used state-of-art maps of smallholder oil palm plantings derived from 2019 remote sensing data. Spatial data on socioeconomic and biophysical factors (e.g. mills, roads, water ways, and concessions) was then used to develop logistic regression models to investigate the relative influence of these factors. We show that spatial patterns of smallholder oil palm plantings are distinct from those of industrial oil palm plantations, revealing the critical roles of roads, especially service roads, residential roads and tracks, in driving smallholder oil palm expansion within peatlands. We found that 90% of smallholder oil palm areas were located within 2 km of roads and 25km of mills. The mean likelihood of a given land area being converted from peat swamp forests to smallholder oil palm declined rapidly with increasing distance from roads. In addition to roads, land use zones (e.g., the setting of concessions and migration settlements) and other environmental factors (e.g., precipitation and elevation) were identified as important drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion on peatland. Based on these findings, we identify priority regions for protection of remaining peat swamp forests in Indonesia and discuss strategies for tackling these sustainability challenges on local and global scales.
... A large share (ca. 45%) of the total expansion of OP in Colombia has occurred in the savanna region of Los Llanos in eastern Colombia, and future expansion in this area is predicted to continue (Castiblanco et al., 2013;Etter et al., 2010). Colombian savannas have acidic soils with poor nutrient and soil organic matter content, and high aluminum toxicity (Basamba et al., 2006;Guimarães et al., 2004). ...
In recent decades, mounting evidence has indicated that the expansion of oil palm (OP) plantations at the expense of tropical forest has had a far pernicious effect on ecosystem aspects. While various deforestation-free strategies have been proposed to enhance OP sustainability, field-based evidence still need to be consolidated, in particular with respect to savanna regions where OP expansion has recently occurred and that present large area with potential for OP cultivation. Here we show that the common management practice creating within the plantation the so-called management zones explained nearly five times more variability of soil biogeochemical properties than the savanna land-use change per se. We also found that clayey-soil savanna conversion into OP increased total ecosystem C stocks by 40 ± 13 Mg C ha-1 during a full OP cultivation cycle, which was due to the higher OP-derived C accumulated in the biomass and in the soil as compared to the loss of savanna-derived C. In addition, application of organic residues in specific management zones enhanced the accumulation of soil organic carbon by up to 1.9 Mg ha-1 year-1 over the full cycle. Within plantation, zones subjected to organic amendments sustained similar soil microbial activity as in neighboring savannas. Our findings represent an empirical proof-of-concept that the conversion of non-forested land in parallel with organic matter-oriented management strategies can enhance OP agroecosystems C sink capacity while promoting microbe-mediated soil functioning. Nonetheless, savannas are unique and threatened ecosystems that support a vast biodiversity. Therefore, we suggest to give priority attention to conservation of natural savannas and direct more research toward the impacts of the conversion and subsequent management of degraded savannas.
... Since large scale agricultural activities in Vichada have become lucrative in the past decades, due to government incentives (Vargas et al., 2015) and, according to Castiblanco et al., (2013), these industries will expand even more, there is a need to evaluate the territory in order to determinate the landcover use and recognize the deterioration of natural areas, so resource exploitation and conservation policies can be formulated. Additionally, the impact in biodiversity have been poorly investigated in the area due to the armed conflicts that have occurred over the last 50 years in Colombia (Hoffmann et al., 2018;Romero et al., 2017). ...
Contextualization: Colombia has experienced multiple land-cover changes derived from socio-economic policies that have reduced the high biodiversity of the country.
Knowledge gap: In the Orinoquía region, the pressure to expand the agricultural frontier is increasing, without considering the importance of its natural resources.
Purpose: This paper aimed to analyze the land-cover variations associated with agricultural practices, in the department of Vichada, with a special interest in vulnerable ecosystems, such as the Bita’s river basin, using Geographic Information System [GIS] analysis of historical images taken by a remote sensor from the United States Geological Service [USGS] Earth Explorer portal.
Methodology: Documental review and an analysis of satellite images from 1985 to 2017.
Results and conclusions: The results showed that in Vichada, during a 32-year period, there was a transition from forest to cropland and pastures, in which 60% of the forest cover got lost. Moreover, areas of natural savannas were also replaced with pastures for livestock production. These land-cover changes were associated with government policies that fomented illegal occupation of land, monocultures, and non-native plantation forests. Bita’s river basin also lost a significant part of forest cover because of agribusiness development in the municipality of Puerto Carreño (Vichada). These land-cover changes have an impact on the ecological integrity of significant ecosystems and in their functionality in the region, that is why, conservation measures must be implemented.
... These effects, would impact conservation priorities by changing the communities assemblages and the ecosystems integrity. Also, local landscape transformation drivers such as illegal mining (Deheza and Ribet, 2012;Sánchez-Cuervo and Aide, 2013b;Fagua and Ramsey, 2019), large monocultures (Fearnside, 2001;Richards, 2011;Castiblanco et al., 2013), and infrastructure development (Nagendra et al., 2003;Pacheco et al., 2011;Romero-Ruiz et al., 2012) threatens these regions. Therefore, the critical areas identified and their threats become a call that supports decision-making to take urgent conservation actions over these regions (Leal et al., 2005;Tabarelli et al., 2010;Roque et al., 2016). ...
Given the increasing threats to biodiversity and limited resources for conservation, our knowledge about the uncertainty in surrogates for representing comprehensively the spatial conservation priorities for biodiversity, needs to be improved. We present a comprehensive spatial conservation approach for Neotropical biodiversity by including surrogates for three biodiversity attributes: composition (8563 species), structure (663 ecosystems), and function (5382 ecological groups). We evaluated the differences in the representativeness and surrogacy-level of resulting portfolios for each attribute, considering the differences for current established conservation areas (CAs), prioritized areas (PRAs; those selected to complement the CAs), and total areas (TAs: CAs + PRAs). The assessment included the entire Neotropics, and a regionalization approach using the Global 200 Ecoregions by country. Finally, we identified critical areas for conservation based on the coincidence of irreplaceable PRAs among biodiversity attributes. Our results confirm the premise that no single surrogate represents biodiversity comprehensively, providing quantitative evidence to support the importance of using integrative information of surrogates for different levels of biodiversity into identifying priority areas for conservation. The spatial mismatch in the portfolios of areas shows how the use of a single level of biodiversity would lead to the omission of conservation priorities for other levels. We also identified critical areas for conservation where irreplaceable spatial priorities of the different biodiversity attributes matched. These areas coincided with known critical and threatened global biodiversity hotspots, and are mostly located in the Chaco, the Atlantic Forest, the Pantanal, Cerrado, and Caatinga regions, and the moist and dry forests of the northern Andes and Mesoamerica.
Should investors and others concerned with supporting Sustainable Development Goals engage with oil palm cultivation, and if so, how? Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) have played a pivotal role in improving social and environmental sustainability in the sector. However, risks and opportunities vary across regions, making their implementation challenging. Despite their importance in the oil palm sector, integrating and developing smallholder farmers within the supply chain remains difficult. Financial and other constraints make certification unattainable for most smallholders, requiring more scalable and flexible solutions guided by the principles underlying VSS. Investors must be aware of local realities and limitations, invest in safeguards, build local capacities, and enhance information flows and dialogue among sector stakeholders.
Landscape changes driven by cash crop plantations have been prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide in recent decades. Investigating the landscape changes and concluding livelihood outcomes are fundamental to figure out the solutions for rural sustainability. This paper examined the landscape changes which was caused by land use changes in tea plantations as well as investigated the resultant livelihood impacts, based on a case study in Fuding City, Southeast China. A questionnaire survey of 114 rural households in four sampled villages was conducted. Results demonstrated that expansion and intensification of tea plantations were two major proximate causes of landscape changes in recent decade. Our survey indicated that some existing intensively-managed tea plantations had derived from intensification and expansion of tea plantations, respectively. We identified four underlying driving forces of landscape changes, including economic benefit, governmental policies, wildlife destruction on grain crops, and rural return migration. Our study confirmed that landscape changes have significant positive effects on farmers’ livelihoods, including increasing employment and incomes, raising living standards, enhancing livelihood assets and livelihood sustainability. Especially, the aged rural populations could have a relatively decent living standard. Meanwhile, the excessive expansion of tea plantations may impair livelihood resilience. Lastly, three policy suggestions based on different time scales have been put forward to promote rural households’ livelihood sustainability and resilience.
The Pacific region is considered a biodiversity hotspot and presents high species endemic levels. The Colombian Pacific basin occupies an area of approx. eight million hectares, located in the country's west. The literature about the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and the spatial information on natural resources in the Colombian Pacific basin was revised through various information sources to document the earliest approximation to the state, spatial distribution, and economic value of the natural capital at the scale of biomes, specific ecosystems, and political-administrative units. Our assessment estimated a natural capital loss of 40 billion Int.2020/year (51% of Colombia's GDP in 2020) for 15 ecosystem services. This research establishes that a potential expansion in livestock production systems will generate an additional loss of natural capital between six and eight billion Int.2020/year. Lastly, the policy challenges and gaps in research and management concerning this remaining natural capital in the Colombian Pacific basin are pointed out.
The Colombian Orinoco savannas (254 thousand km2), also known as Orinoquia or Llanos, have been steadily transformed into pastures for more than a century, and since the 1990s, into commodity crop intensified production. The cropland area expanded at 12% yr-1 during the 2007-2018 period (65% larger than in 1996-2007). Yet, we estimate that cattle ranching occupied ten times more area (34%) than cropland (3.2%) in 2018. The rest of Orinoquia, including indigenous reservations and protected areas, was in a semi-natural state, although also exposed to seasonal fire. The three main crops, oil palm, corn, and rice (72% of the sown area in 2017), accounted for 68% of the expansion, with permanent crops expanding two times faster (18% yr-1) than short-cycle crops. An extrapolation of trends indicates that the cultivated area will double by 2040 (reaching 20 thousand km2), with oil palm as the dominant crop. Satellite measurements show that 7% of Orinoquia burned every year during the 1997-2016 period, yet with large spatial and interannual variations (±26%), and significant decrease trends (up to -4% yr-1). Up to 40% of the burned area (BA) interannual variability was linked to irregular rainfall and drought. The areas with the larger fractional BA were also those with the least fractional cropland cover. A model developed to describe this coupling, along with rainfall and other effects, successfully explained most of Orinoquia’s BA variability (r2 = 0.93). The fitted model indicates that each sown hectare reduced the BA by 0.17 ha. This model predicts that the combination of cropland expansion and independent BA decline will lead to a fourfold reduction of Orinoquia’s BA by 2040 referred to 1997. Orinoquia’s crop production generated 3 Gg of PM10 (particulate matter < 10 µm) in 2016, mostly from short-cycle crops, while biomass burning generated 57 Gg, i.e., 95% of the combined emissions. These are expected to halve during the 2017-2040 period, despite an 83% increase in crop production emissions, as total and seasonal emissions will remain controlled by biomass burning. Such a large pollution burden reduction should have tremendous positive impacts on public health in Orinoquia and the Andes.
Oil palm plantations are expanding in Latin America due to the global demand for food and biofuels, and much of this expansion has occurred at expense of important tropical ecosystems. Nevertheless, there is limited knowledge about effects on aquatic ecosystems near to oil palm-dominated landscapes. In this study, we used Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8 OLI imagery and high-resolution images in Google Earth to map the current extent of oil palm plantations and determined prior land use land cover (LULC) in the Usumacinta River Basin as a case-study site. In addition, we assess the proximity of the crop with aquatic ecosystems distributed in the Usumacinta floodplains and their potential effects. Based on our findings, the most significant change was characterized by the expansion of oil palm crop areas mainly at expenses of regional rainforest and previously intervened lands (e.g. secondary vegetation and agriculture). Although aquatic ecosystem class (e.g. rivers, lagoons and channels) decreased in surface around 3% during the study period (2001–2017), the change was not due to the expansion of oil palm lands. However, we find that more than 50% of oil palm cultivations are near (between 500 and 3000 m) to aquatic ecosystems and this could have significant environmental impacts on sediment and water quality. Oil palm crops tend to spatially concentrate in the Upper Usumacinta ecoregion (Guatemala), which is recognized as an area of important fish endemism. We argue that the basic information generated in this study is essential to have better land use decision-making in a region that is relative newcomer to oil palm boom.
We present a list of mammals in the department of Sucre, based on the review of specimens deposited in biological collections, new and verifiable records in scientific literature. We found 143 species, representing 26.3% of mammals recorded for Colombia. Five species are endemic to Colombia, Cebus versicolor, Pattonomys semivillosus, Proechimys chrysaeolus, Saguinus oedipus and Sylvilagus sanctaemartae; five are categorized as Data Deficient, and 13 and 17 in some category of threat at national and global level, respectively. The bat Ametrida centurio is recorded for the first time in Colombia, based on a photograph taken in the municipality of Santiago de Tolú. We recorded higher species richness to the north of the department, in the sub-regions Golfo de Morrosquillo and Montes de Maria, probably the result of the increased collection effort. It is necessary to increase local efforts, due to insufficient or null exploration in some areas of the department.
Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester
carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers
worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted
to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based
ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases
for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns
about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.
p align="justify">El sector agrario colombiano, a pesar de haber reducido su aporte porcentual al PIB, tiene una relevancia estratégica como generador de empleo en el área rural. Pero ¿de qué manera se ha desarrollado la generación de empleo en el sector agrario colombiano en los últimos años?; ¿cuáles son los factores que más influyen en la generación de empleo en el sector agrario colombiano?, y ¿cuáles son las perspectivas de la generación de empleo en el sector agrario colombiano? La presente investigación tiene como objeto responder preguntas. Para determinar los factores que influyen en la generación de empleo se han utilizado correlaciones de los empleos generados y las variables provenientes de las estadísticas nacionales como: salarios, créditos al sector, producción, migración, exportaciones e importaciones, entre otros. Para el análisis se subdividió al sector en subsectores y grupos de cultivos. Como resultado del trabajo se ha encontrado que el sector agrario tiene en general una creciente generación de empleo. Sin embargo, el subsector de producción animal tiene una tendencia negativa. Por departamentos, las tendencias de generación de empleos agrarios son, en la mayoría de los casos, positivas, pero también hay casos de tendencia negativa y casos donde no se observan cambios. Los factores que han mostrado ser más influyentes para generar empleos en el subsector de producción vegetal son: agrocréditos, sistemas de producción intensivos y precios bajos de las tierras de cultivo. Los salarios y la exportación no tienen mucha relevancia. En el subsector de producción animal el determinante principal es el desarrollo tecnológico (tecnificación y especialización) que a su vez está determinado por el agrocrédito, la exportación, los salarios y la producción bovina de carne. </p
Biofuels are receiving growing negative attention. Direct and/or indirect land-use changes that result from their cultivation can cause emissions due to carbon losses in soils and biomass and could negate any eventual greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefit. This paper evaluates the implications of land-use change emission on the climate-change mitigation potential of different biofuel production systems in 12 case studies in six countries. We calculated carbon debts created by conversion of different land-use types, ranging from annual cropland to primary forest. We evaluated case studies using three different biofuel crops: oil palm, Jatropha, and soybean. The time needed for each biofuel production system to pay back its carbon debt was calculated based on a life-cycle assessment of the GHG reduction potentials of the system. Carbon debts range from 39 to 1743.7 Mg C0 2 ha -1 . The oil palm case studies created the largest carbon debts (472.8–1743.7 t C0 2 ha -1) because most of the area expansion came at the expense of dense tropical forest. The highest debt was associated with plantation on peatland. For all cases evaluated, only soybean in Guarantã do Norte and Alta Floresta, Brazil needed less than one human generation (30 years) to repay the initial carbon debt. Highest repayment times were found for Jatropha (76–310 years) and oil palm (59–220 years) case studies. Oil palm established in peatlands had the greatest repayment times (206–220 years). High repayment times for Jatropha resulted from the combined effects of land-cover change and low CO 2 emission reduction rate. These outcomes raise serious questions about the sustainability of biofuel production. The carbon implications of conversion of (semi-)natural systems with medium to high biomass indicate that, in order to generate climate benefits, cultivation of biofuel feedstocks should be restricted to areas that already have low carbon content.
Rising energy prices, geopolitics and concerns over the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change are increasing the demand for biofuel production. At present biofuel production is estimated at 35 billion liters, accounting only for a small part (, 2%) of the 1200 billion liters of annual gasoline consumption worldwide. But the contribution of biofuels to energy supply is expected to grow fast with beneficial impacts including reductions in greenhouse gasses, improved energy security and new income sources for farmers. However, biomass production for energy will also compete with food crops for scarce land and water resources, already a major constraint on agricultural production in many parts of the world. China and India, the world's two largest producers and consumers of many agricultural commodities, already face severe water limitations in agricultural production, yet both have initiated programs to boost biofuel production. This paper explores the land and water implications of increased biofuel production globally and with special focus on these two important countries, using the WATERSIM model. It concludes that, although of lesser concern at the global level, local and regional impact could be substantial. In fact, the strain on water resources would be such in China and India that it is unlikely that policy makers will pursue biofuel options, at least those based on traditional field crops.
Oil-palm agriculture is the greatest immediate threat to biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Despite the efforts of environmentalists,
oil palm continues to expand across the tropics. Those concerned about the impacts of oil palm on biodiversity must face some
harsh social, economic, and ecological realities: (i) oil palm has been a very profitable crop; (ii) palm oil is used in so
many products that simple, direct actions, such as boycotts, are unlikely to succeed; (iii) there is currently insufficient
demand for certified sustainable palm oil and inadequate political clout from environmental groups in two of the biggest markets
for palm oil—China and India—to slow the rate of forest conversion; and (iv) oil-palm agriculture has improved the lives of
poor rural communities in Southeast Asia (although it has also disenfranchised some indigenous communities). To address the
threats posed by oil-palm agriculture to biodiversity, environmentalists must change the behavior of the palm oil business
through: (i) regulations to curb undesirable activities (e.g., a ban on converting forests to oil palm); (ii) financial incentives
to promote desirable behavior (e.g., production of certified, sustainable oil palm); (iii) financial disincentives designed
to discourage undesirable behavior (e.g., consumer pressure on major manufacturers and retailers to use palm oil that does
not come from plantations created at the expense of forests); and (iv) the promotion of alternative, more biodiversity-friendly
uses of forested land that might otherwise be converted to oil palm. There is no single best approach for dealing with the
oil-palm crisis in Southeast Asia; a mixture of regulations, incentives, and disincentives targeted at all sectors of the
oil-palm industry is necessary to protect the region’s rapidly disappearing forests.
KeywordsTropical deforestation-Oil palm-Monoculture-Biodiversity conservation-Reconciliation ecology-Biofuels
Estimates of emissions indicate that if tropical grassland is rehabilitated by oil palm plantations, carbon fixation in plantation biomass and soil organic matter not only neutralises emissions caused by grassland conversion, but also results in the net removal of about 135 Mg carbon dioxide per hectare from the atmosphere. In contrast, the emission from forest conversion clearly exceeds the potential carbon fixation of oil palm plantings. Forest conversion on mineral soils to promote continued oil palm mono cropping causes a net release of approximately 650 Mg carbon dioxide equivalents per hectare, while the emission from peat forest conversion is even higher due to the decomposition of drained peat and the resulting emission of carbon oxide and nitrous oxide. The conversion of one hectare of forest on peat releases over 1,300 Mg carbon dioxide equivalents during the first 25-year cycle of oil palm growth. Depending on the peat depth, continuous decomposition augments the emission with each additional cycle at a magnitude of 800 Mg carbon dioxide equivalents per hectare.
The creation of ‘flexibility mechanisms’ such as the clean development mechanism and emission trading in the Kyoto Protocol could incorporate plantations as carbon sinks in the effort to meet emission targets. Thus, for the oil palm industry, grassland rehabilitation is an option to preserve natural forest, avoid emissions and, if the sequestered carbon becomes tradable, an opportunity to generate additional revenue.
Regional and local land use changes driven by the growing demands of the
world population are considered prime factors contributing to the observed
global climate change trends (Foley et al., 2005; Pielke et al., 2002). One
major impact of such land use changes along the expanding agricultural
fronts on climate is through carbon emissions from deforestation in forests
and changing fire patterns, cattle densities, and vegetation biomass in savannas.
While the global community is seeking to reduce fossil fuel consumption, a parallel but equally important issue is the environmental impacts of increased world consumption of beef. We provide a comparative analysis and synthesis of the expansion of beef cattle production and its regional and global environmental impacts for Queensland (Australia), Colombia and Brazil. Evidence assembled indicates that rising beef consumption is a major driver of regional and global change, and warrants greater policy attention. We propose four policy imperatives to help mitigate escalating environmental impacts of beef: stop subsidising beef production and promoting beef consumption; control future expansion of soybeans and extensive grazing; protect and restore regrowth forests in grazing lands; and allocate resources to less environmentally damaging alternative land uses.
We developed interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas (excluding Antarctica) at a spatial resolution of 30 arc s (often referred to as 1-km spatial resolution). The climate elements considered were monthly precipitation and mean, minimum, and maximum temperature. Input data were gathered from a variety of sources and, where possible, were restricted to records from the 1950-2000 period. We used the thin-plate smoothing spline algorithm implemented in the ANUSPLIN package for interpolation, using latitude, longitude, and elevation as independent variables. We quantified uncertainty arising from the input data and the interpolation by mapping weather station density, elevation bias in the weather stations, and elevation variation within grid cells and through data partitioning and cross validation. Elevation bias tended to be negative (stations lower than expected) at high latitudes but positive in the tropics. Uncertainty is highest in mountainous and in poorly sampled areas. Data partitioning showed high uncertainty of the surfaces on isolated islands, e.g. in the Pacific. Aggregating the elevation and climate data to 10 arc min resolution showed an enormous variation within grid cells, illustrating the value of high-resolution surfaces. A comparison with an existing data set at 10 arc min resolution showed overall agreement, but with significant variation in some regions. A comparison with two high-resolution data sets for the United States also identified areas with large local differences, particularly in mountainous areas. Compared to previous global climatologies, ours has the following advantages: the data are at a higher spatial resolution (400 times greater or more); more weather station records were used; improved elevation data were used; and more information about spatial patterns of uncertainty in the data is available. Owing to the overall low density of available climate stations, our surfaces do not capture of all variation that may occur at a resolution of 1 km, particularly of precipitation in mountainous areas. In future work, such variation might be captured through knowledge-based methods and inclusion of additional co-variates, particularly layers obtained through remote sensing.
Identifying drivers of deforestation in tropical biodiversity hotspots is critical to assess threats to particular ecosystems and species and proactively plan for conservation. We analyzed land cover change between 2002 and 2007 in the northern Andes, Chocó, and Amazon forests of Colombia, the largest producer of coca leaf for the global cocaine market, to quantify the impact of this illicit crop on forest dynamics, evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas in this context, and determine the effects of eradication on deforestation. Landscape-level analyses of forest conversion revealed that proximity to new coca plots and a greater proportion of an area planted with coca increased the probability of forest loss in southern Colombia, even after accounting for other covariates and spatial autocorrelation. We also showed that protected areas successfully reduced forest conversion in coca-growing regions. Neither eradication nor coca cultivation predicted deforestation rates across municipalities. Instead, the presence of new coca cultivation was an indicator of municipalities, where increasing population led to higher deforestation rates. We hypothesize that poor rural development underlies the relationship between population density and deforestation in coca-growing areas. Conservation in Colombia's vast forest frontier, which overlaps with its coca frontier, requires a mix of protected areas and strategic rural development to succeed.
While the global community is seeking to reduce fossil fuel consumption, a parallel but equally important issue is the environmental impacts of increased world consumption of beef. We provide a comparative analysis and synthesis of the expansion of beef cattle production and its regional and global environmental impacts for Queensland (Australia), Colombia and Brazil. Evidence assembled indicates that rising beef consumption is a major driver of regional and global change, and warrants greater policy attention. We propose four policy imperatives to help mitigate escalating environmental impacts of beef: stop subsidising beef production and promoting beef consumption; control future expansion of soybeans and extensive grazing; protect and restore regrowth forests in grazing lands; and allocate resources to less environmentally damaging alternative land uses.
"The ongoing expansion of oil palm plantations in the humid tropics, especially in Southeast Asia, is generating considerable concern and debate. Amid industry and environmental campaigners' claims, it can be hard to perceive reality. Is oil palm a valuable route to sustainable development or a costly road to environmental ruin? Inevitably, any answer depends on many choices. But do decision makers have the information they require to avoid pitfalls and make the best decisions? "This review examines what we know and what we don't know about oil palm developments. Our sources include academic publications and grey literature, along with expert consultations. Some facts are indisputable: among these are that oil palm is highly productive and commercially profitable at large scales, and that palm oil demand is rising. "Implementing oil palm developments involves many tradeoffs. Oil palm's considerable profitability offers wealth and development where wealth and development are needed--but also threatens traditional livelihoods. It offers a route out of poverty, while also making people vulnerable to exploitation, misinformation and market instabilities. It threatens rich biological diversity--while also offering the finance needed to protect forest. It offers a renewable source of fuel, but also threatens to increase global carbon emissions. "We remain uncertain of the full implications of current choices. How can local, regional and international benefits be increased while costs are minimised? While much important information is available, it is often open to question or hard to generalise. We conclude this review with a list of pressing questions requiring further investigation. Credible, unbiased research on these issues will move the discussion and practice forward."
In this article, we attempt to find the spatial relations between deforestation and biofuel production at global level by analyzing available global deforestation and biofuels data, and find that, for a variety of reasons relating to data availability and its characteristics, and the way biofuels are produced, this task is extremely difficult if not virtually impossible. Then we bring down the scale of the analysis to the case study level and provide a detailed methodology for analyzing the spatial relation between deforestation and biofuel development. We argue that this multi-scale approach, based on systematic sampling at the case study level would help to better understand the relation between biofuels and deforestation. Given the fact that biofuels are a highly contested approach to reduction of global carbon emissions, and that different lobbies in this debate are making claims that deforestation is, or is not, occurring as a result of the expansion of biofuel production, clarity on the methodological difficulties of making statements of this kind, at least in a global spatial analysis, may help avoid false conclusions being promulgated in the future.
This paper describes a methodology to explore the (future) spatial distribution of biofuel crops in Europe. Two main types of biofuel crops are distinguished: biofuel crops used for the production of biodiesel or bioethanol, and second-generation biofuel crops. A multi-scale, multi-model approach is used in which biofuel crops are allocated over the period 2000–2030. The area of biofuel crops at the national level is determined by a macro-economic model. A spatially explicit land use model is used to allocate the biofuel crops within the countries. Four scenarios have been prepared based on storylines influencing the extent and spatial distribution of biofuel crop cultivation. The allocation algorithm consists of two steps. In the first step, processing plants are allocated based on location factors that are dependent on the type of biofuel crop processed and scenario conditions. In the second step, biofuel crops are allocated accounting for the transportation costs to the processing plants. Both types of biofuel crops are allocated separately based on different location factors. Despite differences between the scenarios, mostly the same areas are showing growth in biofuel crop cultivation in all scenarios. These areas stand out because they have a combination of well-developed infrastructural and industrial facilities and large areas of suitable arable land. The spatially explicit results allow an assessment of the potential consequences of large-scale biofuel crop cultivation for ecology and environment.
This first chapter explains some of the basic theoretical ideas, concepts and methodologies that underpin the modelling of
land-use change. It represents an overview of the types of approaches that have been adopted by researchers hitherto. It also
provides a rationale for the structure of the book and a synopsis of the contents that follow.
An expanding human population and associated demands for goods and services continues to exert an increasing pressure on ecological systems. Although the rate of expansion of agricultural lands has slowed since 1960, rapid deforestation still occurs in many tropical countries, including Colombia. However, the location and extent of deforestation and associated ecological impacts within tropical countries is often not well known. The primary aim of this study was to obtain an understanding of the spatial patterns of forest conversion for agricultural land uses in Colombia. We modeled native forest conversion in Colombia at regional and national-levels using logistic regression and classification trees. We investigated the impact of ignoring the regional variability of model parameters, and identified biophysical and socioeconomic factors that best explain the current spatial pattern and inter-regional variation in forest cover. We validated our predictions for the Amazon region using MODIS satellite imagery. The regional-level classification tree that accounted for regional heterogeneity had the greatest discrimination ability. Factors related to accessibility (distance to roads and towns) were related to the presence of forest cover, although this relationship varied regionally. In order to identify areas with a high risk of deforestation, we used predictions from the best model, refined by areas with rural population growth rates of >2%. We ranked forest ecosystem types in terms of levels of threat of conversion. Our results provide useful inputs to planning for biodiversity conservation in Colombia, by identifying areas and ecosystem types that are vulnerable to deforestation. Several of the predicted deforestation hotspots coincide with areas that are outstanding in terms of biodiversity value.
In light of the recent rise in global food prices, much of the literature on crop-based biofuel production focuses on the potential impacts on food security. Studies have identified linkages between the usage of feedstocks in biofuel production and international food price increases. In addition, these studies indicate that food prices are expected to continue to rise over the next decade in response to biofuel consumption targets adopted in the U.S. and E.U. Despite these indications, some countries for whom food security and poverty reduction are still an issue have initiated crop-based biofuel development and set forth national blending targets for energy use within the transportation sector. As a result, a broader examination of the tradeoffs concerning welfare and food security related to biofuel development merit consideration. Opportunities to generate income and expand agricultural production technology through biofuel development may provide welfare gains that can improve purchasing power and decrease vulnerability to price shocks for food and energy. In addition, biofuel production schemes that promote alternative energy sources for household uses can improve productivity and health, especially for women and children. To assist with the sector development that maximizes welfare gains, we suggest a number of key indicators that might be useful in constructing a typology that can be applied across countries to characterize their energy needs and better target the types of bioenergy uses that might be best suited for them. In addition, biofuel production models are reviewed and best-practices identified that can expand welfare gains for smallholders and the poor. Through these examples, we demonstrate a basis upon which policymakers might approach the prioritization of their national strategies towards developing renewable energy sources, such that they can have the maximum impact upon important goals of human welfare and development.
Recently a number of objections have been raised against the use of ethanol produced from agricultural products such as maize, sugarcane, wheat or sugar beets as a replacement for gasoline, despite some of their advantages such as being cleaner and to some extent renewable. We address these objections in this paper. Topics discussed include the “corn connection” (which was theorized to be a cause of deforestation in the Amazonia), the rise of food prices due to ethanol production and the real possibilities of ethanol in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has been shown that such concerns are grossly exaggerated and that ethanol from sugarcane, as produced in Brazil, is the preferred option for the production of fuel not only in terms of cost but also as a favourable energy balance. Finally, the possibility of expanding ethanol production to other sugar-producing countries is also discussed.
Questions of land use/land cover change have attracted interest among a wide variety of researchers concerned with modeling the spatial and temporal patterns of land conversion and understanding the causes and consequences of these changes. Among these, geographers and natural scientists have taken the lead in developing spatially explicit models of land use change at highly disaggregate scales (i.e. individual land parcels or cells of the landscape). However, less attention has been given in the development of these models to understanding the economic process — namely, the human behavioral component — that underlies land use change. To the extent that researchers are interested in explaining the causal relationships between individual choices and land use change outcomes, more fully articulated economic models of land use change are necessary.
The concept of land use transition highlights that land use change is non-linear and is associated with other societal and biophysical system changes. A transition in land use is not a fixed pattern, nor is it deterministic. Land use transitions can be caused by negative socio-ecological feedbacks that arise from a depletion of key resources or from socio-economic change and innovation that take place rather independently from the ecological system. Here, we explore whether the sources of land use transitions are mostly endogenous socio-ecological forces or exogenous socio-economic factors. We first review a few generic pathways of forest transition as identified in national case studies, and evaluate the varying ecological quality of expanding forests associated with these pathways. We then discuss possible explanatory frameworks of land use transitions. We use the case of the recent forest transition in Vietnam as an illustration. Socio-ecological feedbacks seem to better explain a slowing down of deforestation and stabilization of forest cover, while exogenous socio-economic factors better account for reforestation. We conclude by discussing the prospects of accelerating land use transitions in tropical forest countries.
Increased future demands for food, fibre and fuels from biomass can only be met if the available land and water resources on a global scale are used and managed as efficiently as possible. The main routes for making the global agricultural system more productive are through intensification and technological change on currently used agricultural land, land expansion into currently non-agricultural areas, and international trade in agricultural commodities and processed goods. In order to analyse the trade-offs and synergies between these options, we present a global bio-economic modelling approach with a special focus on spatially explicit land and water constraints as well as technological change in agricultural production. For a global bioenergy demand scenario reaching 100 ExaJoule (EJ) until 2055 we derive a required rate of productivity increase on agricultural land between 1.2 and 1.4 percent per year under different land allocation options. A very high pressure for yield increase occurs in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, even without additional bioenergy demand. Moreover, we analyse the implicit values (shadow prices) of limited water resources. The shadow prices for bioenergy are provided as a metric for assessing the trade-offs between different land allocation options and as a link between the agricultural and energy sector.
The planned expansion of biofuel plantations in Brazil could potentially cause both direct and indirect land-use changes (e.g., biofuel plantations replace rangelands, which replace forests). In this study, we use a spatially explicit model to project land-use changes caused by that expansion in 2020, assuming that ethanol (biodiesel) production increases by 35 (4) x 10(9) liter in the 2003-2020 period. Our simulations show that direct land-use changes will have a small impact on carbon emissions because most biofuel plantations would replace rangeland areas. However, indirect land-use changes, especially those pushing the rangeland frontier into the Amazonian forests, could offset the carbon savings from biofuels. Sugarcane ethanol and soybean biodiesel each contribute to nearly half of the projected indirect deforestation of 121,970 km(2) by 2020, creating a carbon debt that would take about 250 years to be repaid using these biofuels instead of fossil fuels. We also tested different crops that could serve as feedstock to fulfill Brazil's biodiesel demand and found that oil palm would cause the least land-use changes and associated carbon debt. The modeled livestock density increases by 0.09 head per hectare. But a higher increase of 0.13 head per hectare in the average livestock density throughout the country could avoid the indirect land-use changes caused by biofuels (even with soybean as the biodiesel feedstock), while still fulfilling all food and bioenergy demands. We suggest that a closer collaboration or strengthened institutional link between the biofuel and cattle-ranching sectors in the coming years is crucial for effective carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil.
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