Loading...
High-yield oil palm expansion spares land at the expense of forests in the Peruvian Amazon
Gutiérrez-Vélez, VÃctor Hugo DeFries, Ruth Pinedo-Vásquez, Miguel Uriarte, MarÃa Padoch, Christine Baethgen, Walter Fernandes, Katia Lim, Yili
Gutiérrez-Vélez, VÃctor Hugo
DeFries, Ruth
Pinedo-Vásquez, Miguel
Uriarte, MarÃa
Padoch, Christine
Baethgen, Walter
Fernandes, Katia
Lim, Yili
Citations
Altmetric:
Genre
Journal article
Date
2011-12-22
Advisor
Committee member
Group
Department
Geography and Urban Studies
Permanent link to this record
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044029
Abstract
High-yield agriculture potentially reduces pressure on forests by requiring less land to increase production. Using satellite and field data, we assessed the area deforested by industrial-scale high-yield oil palm expansion in the Peruvian Amazon from 2000 to 2010, finding that 72% of new plantations expanded into forested areas. In a focus area in the Ucayali region, we assessed deforestation for high- and smallholder low-yield oil palm plantations. Low-yield plantations accounted for most expansion overall (80%), but only 30% of their expansion involved forest conversion, contrasting with 75% for high-yield expansion. High-yield expansion minimized the total area required to achieve production but counter-intuitively at higher expense to forests than low-yield plantations. The results show that high-yield agriculture is an important but insufficient strategy to reduce pressure on forests. We suggest that high-yield agriculture can be effective in sparing forests only if coupled with incentives for agricultural expansion into already cleared lands.
Description
Citation
Gutiérrez-Vélez, V.H., DeFries, R., Pinedo-Vásquez, M., et al. (2011). High-yield oil palm expansion spares land at the expense of forests in the Peruvian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters. 6:5. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044029.
Citation to related work
IOP Publishing
Has part
Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 6, No. 4
ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu