Biodiversity Bust
‘Wildlife-friendly’ oil palm plantations aren’t so friendly
In an effort to be less environmentally destructive, some oil palm producers have created or maintained forest patches on their plantations. But a study in press at Conservation Letters suggests that these fragments do little to protect threatened species.
To judge the effectiveness of ‘wildlife-friendly’ patches, a team surveyed bird diversity at oil palm plantations and a forest reserve in Borneo. In forest fragments on oil palm estates, the researchers detected 60 times fewer birds of conservation concern per 15-minute survey than they did in unfragmented forest. Larger patches fared better than smaller ones, but they “would have to be hundreds or thousands of hectares… to have the same abundance of priority birds as contiguous forest,” the authors write.
The types of bird species found in forest patches resembled those seen in the rest of the plantation, the team reports. And the fragments didn’t appear to increase the number of birds in neighboring plantation areas. Rather than spending resources on maintaining these forest patches, the researchers say, oil palm producers should focus on protecting unfragmented forest outside their estates. – Roberta Kwok
Source: Edwards, D.P. et al. 2010. Wildlife-friendly oil palm plantations fail to protect biodiversity effectively. Conservation Letters Accepted Article DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00107.x.
Image © tanteckken, iStockPhoto.com
