Impacts of Oil Palm Plantations on Climate Change: A Review of Peat Swamp Forests’ Conversion in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia possesses a rich biodiversity with abundant natural resources such as tropical rain and peat swamp forests, oil and gas deposits, and fertile soils just to name a few. The state policies on natural resource management were decentralized and the power and local autonomy rights were given to provincial and district governments. This resulted in an enormous expansion of oil palm plantations across the country especially over the last three decades. On the one hand it boosted the country's economy by bringing foreign money reserves, but on the other hand has led to severe deforestation, shifting cultivation, peat swamp forests conversion and land degradation. Thus, due to the severity of these environmental consequences and associated climate change implications, oil palm development has received significant attention from all stakeholders and is the subject of global debate. This paper aims to discuss the results of various studies regarding emissions of GHGs from oil palm plantations in Indonesia and highlights the fundamental methodologies