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Contact: Dr. Ben Groom
The Palm Oil Concession Moratorium and its Spatial Impact on Deforestation
This project aims to analyse the effectiveness of the 2011 Moratorium on Palm Oil, Timber and Logging concessions, issued by then Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in compliance to the REDD+ agreement reached by Norway and Indonesia in May 2010. The Moratorium sought to halt the conversion of primary forest and peatlands into palm oil, timber and logging estates, thus slowing down the intensive deforestation processes which characterised the Indonesian land-use sector in the previous decades.
This research is geared at four specific questions.
- Has the Moratorium been effective in slowing down deforestation within its declared perimeter? Have there been differences in the rates of deforestation observed among the three different land-use designations?
- What are the industry-specific drivers of deforestation in the agricultural and land-use sector?
- Is it possible to assess whether the presence of foreign investors, namely Multinational Enterprises, has intensified the deforestation process? Which characteristics of the Multinationals involved in the Indonesian agricultural sector play a major role in their propensity to clear forested land?
- Is there a causal link between rural poverty and deforestation? Do Multinationals take advantage of relative deprivation in rural areas to perpetrate heavier deforestation practices?
This project is attempting to answer these questions using a unique spatially defined dataset on land-use, forest fires and oil-palm production, combined with econometric methods for impact analysis.
More info
http://www.lse.ac.uk/seac/research/research-fund
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