The Zoological Society of London has provided palm oil practitioners and policy makers with improved access to the latest science concerning the impact of oil palm on biodiversity and how this can best be mitigated. This will enable better informed public and private policy decisions and more effective management interventions.

 

To succeed in reducing the impact of oil palm on biodiversity it is essential that emerging policies and practices aiming to promote sustainable production are based on the best possible science. However, scientific research tends to be published in academic journals in complex technical language, with the result that this information is highly inaccessible to the policy makers and practitioners in a position to act on it.

 

With a grant from the Biodiversity and Agricultural Commodities Programme (BACP) the Zoological Society of London has used two different approaches to make the scientific research which elucidates the relationship between oil palm and biodiversity more accessible to both palm oil policy makers and practitioners. The first was to establish a ‘Biodiversity Information for Oil Palm’ website (www.oilpalm-biodiversity.info) and the second to convene an international symposium and produce an accompanying publication.

 

The Biodiversity Information for Oil Palm website, which is available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia, supports a searchable database of scientific research relating to the impact of oil palm on biodiversity. For each publication featured, the database includes a summary of the information which is most relevant to practitioners, written in simple language, as well as a link to the abstract and full article. Since it was launched in February 2010, this website has been accessed by 4,054 unique visitors.

 

The aim of convening the symposium ‘Sustainable palm oil: challenges, a common vision and the way forwards’ was to review the science and practicalities of reconciling continued global oil palm expansion with biodiversity conservation and the maintenance of ecosystem function in order to identify the actions necessary to make this a reality. The symposium was attended by 143 participants from around the world, including key regions of palm oil production and consumption such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Liberia, Cameroon, Columbia and China. These participants encompassed an extremely diverse range of experiences and perspectives, from Indonesian producers to major manufacturers, as well as government representatives from the UK, Liberia and China. The whole event was streamed live on the 2 degrees website, which is a global community for sustainable business, and generated significant media interest. The publication summarising the proceedings of the symposium, ‘Towards sustainable palm oil: a framework for action’, was launched at the 9th Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in November 2011.