The Zoological Society of London has produced previously lacking practical guidance to assist High Conservation Value (HCV) assessors and conservation managers from palm oil companies to identify and conserve species and habitats of High Conservation Value within oil palm landscapes more effectively.

 

The Practical Toolkit for Conserving Species and Habitats of High Conservation Value within oil palm landscapes provides summaries of the relevant theory, access to available resources and case studies to assist in tackling the issues most frequently faced by practitioners working to maintain and enhance HCV species and habitats within oil palm landscapes. This is based on ZSL’s research and experience, as well the experience of the 49 HCV assessors, conservation managers from palm oil companies and NGO representatives who participated in the workshop.

 

To ensure maximum uptake of and access to the guidance documents produced they have both been reviewed and endorsed by the RSPO Biodiversity & HCV Working Group and will be translated into Bahasa Indonesia and distributed to all members of both the international and Indonesian HCV Resource Networks. 

 

The requirement to identify, maintain and enhance High Conservation Values within both existing oil palm concessions and new developments is the primary provision within the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Principles & Criteria (RSPO P&C) to conserve biodiversity within oil palm landscapes. Although this has been identified by practitioners as one of the most challenging aspects of the RSPO P&C to implement, sector specific practical guidance defining best practice has been sorely lacking.

 

With a grant from the Biodiversity and Agricultural Commodities Programme (BACP) the Zoological Society of London has collaborated with a variety of stakeholders to produce practical guidance to assist producers to both identify and conserve species and habitats of High Conservation Value. Over 90 practitioners contributed to the production of these guidance documents through participation in two workshops. In addition to providing assurance that the guidance produced is both relevant and practical, these workshops provided a rare but extremely valuable opportunity for ‘peer to peer’ learning and exchange of experience.