Data from: The impacts of oil palm on recent deforestation and biodiversity loss

Palm oil is the most widely traded vegetable oil globally, with demand projected to increase substantially in the future. Almost all oil palm grows in areas that were once tropical moist forests, some of them quite recently. The conversion to date, and future expansion, threatens biodiversity and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Today, consumer pressure is pushing companies toward deforestation-free sources of palm oil. To guide interventions aimed at reducing tropical deforestation due to oil palm, we analysed recent expansions and modelled likely future ones. We assessed sample areas to find where oil palm plantations have recently replaced forests in 20 countries, using a combination of high-resolution imagery from Google Earth and Landsat. We then compared these trends to countrywide trends in FAO data for oil palm planted area. Finally, we assessed which forests have high agricultural suitability for future oil palm development, which we refer to as vulnerable forests, and identified critical areas for biodiversity that oil palm expansion threatens. Our analysis reveals regional trends in deforestation associated with oil palm agriculture. In Southeast Asia, 45% of sampled oil palm plantations came from areas that were forests in 1989. For South America, the percentage was 31%. By contrast, in Mesoamerica and Africa, we observed only 2% and 7% of oil palm plantations coming from areas that were forest in 1989. The largest areas of vulnerable forest are in Africa and South America. Vulnerable forests in all four regions of production contain globally high concentrations of mammal and bird species at risk of extinction. However, priority areas for biodiversity conservation differ based on taxa and criteria used. Government regulation and voluntary market interventions can help incentivize the expansion of oil palm plantations in ways that protect biodiversity-rich ecosystems.

棕榈油是全球交易量最高的植物油，未来需求预计将大幅攀升。当前几乎所有油棕种植园均布局于曾为热带湿润林的土地之上，其中不少开发活动发生在近年。迄今为止的土地转化行为与未来的扩张计划，均对生物多样性构成严重威胁，并加剧温室气体排放。
当下，消费者的舆论压力正推动企业转向采用无森林砍伐来源的棕榈油。为指导旨在减少油棕种植引发的热带森林砍伐的干预举措，本研究分析了近期油棕扩张的实际情况，并对未来可能的扩张趋势开展建模预测。研究团队结合谷歌地球（Google Earth）与陆地卫星（Landsat）的高分辨率影像，对20个国家的采样区域开展调查，以确定近期有哪些区域的油棕种植园取代了原有森林。随后，我们将观测得到的局部扩张趋势，与联合国粮食及农业组织（Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO）统计的各国油棕种植面积的全国性变化趋势进行比对。最后，我们评估了具备较高农业适宜性、可用于未来油棕开发的森林区域——将其定义为“脆弱森林”，并识别出油棕扩张所威胁的生物多样性关键区域。
本研究的分析结果揭示了油棕种植业关联的森林砍伐区域分布趋势：在东南亚，1989年时为森林的区域中，有45%现已被采样的油棕种植园占据；南美洲的这一比例为31%。与之形成鲜明对比的是，中美洲与非洲的油棕种植园，分别仅有2%与7%源自1989年的森林覆盖区域。
全球范围内面积最大的脆弱森林集中分布于非洲与南美洲。四大油棕主产区内的脆弱森林，均拥有全球范围内高度聚集的濒危哺乳类与鸟类物种。不过，基于不同的生物类群与评估标准，生物多样性保护的优先区域也存在差异。政府监管与自愿性市场干预措施，能够以保护生物多样性丰富的生态系统为前提，激励油棕种植园的合理扩张。