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Home > Highlights > Biofuels: putting out fire with gasoline?
Biofuels: putting out fire with gasoline?
Biofuel plantations promise to be an important energy source, but they must be developed with close consideration of local environmental and social needs. Photo by Hari Priyadi
The promise biofuel holds as an alternative to petroleum based products has received considerable attention this past 12 months from industry, scientists, environmental organizations and governments. It seems likely oil palm development will be on the minds of more than a few delegates attending the Conference of the Parties (COP) on Climate Change in Bali later this year.
One of the big questions is whether biofuel production is the panacea that many of it proponents often claim. Or will extensive plantation of biofuel crops help solve only one problem while opening up a Pandora’s Box of other environmental and social issues.
An issue of concern to CIFOR is the corruption so often associated with plantation schemes, especially in Indonesia. All too often plantation investment proposals are a pretext for looting valuable timber.
Investors often promise that, in return for logging the land, a plantation will be developed that will stimulate the local economy and provide jobs. But once the chainsaws are quiet and the last logging truck has disappeared, often not a single seed is planted. As a result, ecosystems are damaged and social and economic costs are inflicted on local communities and governments. In 2004 fictitious plantation schemes on the island of Borneo reportedly caused $400 million in losses to the East Kalimantan Provincial Government.
And the simple fact is that plantations don’t need to be developed on forest lands. Furthermore, such lands often lack the fertility needed for successful plantation development. As CIFOR scientists Doug Sheil and Iman Basuki note, “Anyone genuinely interested in growing oil palm in Indonesia can find plenty of degraded and deforested land to fill their needs.” Sheil and Basuki, working with Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, surveyed 200 sites in the upper Malinau watershed of East Kalimantan. They found the terrain to be rugged and consisting of poor, easily eroded soil. None of the sites surveyed met the standard government criteria for forest conversion.
It would be wrong to suggest biofuel development is always bad. That is not the case. Conducted properly and based on appropriate research findings, there is no doubt biofuel development can lead to a reduction in global dependency on fossil fuels and reduce the greenhouse gasses they emit.
But caution is needed. If biofuel development is to be more of a cure[DM1] than a curse in the world’s efforts to address climate change, it is important to ensure it does not lead to deforestation or impose costs on forest-dependent communities.
Biofuel projects should proceed only following the completion of feasibility and impact assessments that:
- Are transparent and consultative, and meaningfully involve local governments and affected communities
- Assure that development is limited to areas that are ecologically suitable for the proposed biofuels crop
- Assure that development is limited to areas that are genuinely unproductive
- Assess environmental impacts, including impact on vulnerability to fire
- Assess social impacts, and
- Assure that development is limited to areas that are genuinely free from conflicting land rights claims. In addition, law enforcement efforts must be strengthened to ensure biofuel developers fulfill their obligations and comply with existing regulations.
The bottom line is that biofuels development – if targeted at degraded lands, and designed with appropriate environmental and social safeguards – could provide benefits in the form of land rehabilitation and local income and employment opportunities. However, improved planning and law enforcement is necessary to ensure biofuel development does not take place at the expense of forests and the communities that depend on them.
The links below provide further information about these and other key issues surrounding palm oil development:
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