Coconut oil worse than palm oil for biodiversity. The study sparked controversy

    New research, much discussed and controversial, claims that coconut oil is more dangerous than palm oil for the environment and biodiversity

    Palm oil has a bad reputation, but is it worse than coconut oil? According to a new study published recently, the answer is no: coconut oil would represent a much more serious threat to biodiversity. However, there was a strong debate on these results.





    A new study, published July 6 in Current Biology, claims coconut oil production is taking off 5 times more biodiversity at risk than palm oil. In practice, the research, whose lead author is Erik Meijaard, believes that coconut oil, an environmentally better alternative, would actually put more species at risk than the much-discussed palm oil.

    These macaques are enslaved to harvest our coconut

    However, the document sparked a fierce debate among experts, many of whom accused the authors of promoting dubious statistics and an attempt to "acquit" palm oil. And the doubt, legitimate, comes to everyone considering that the aforementioned Professor Meijaard, directs Borneo Futures, a Brunei-based consultancy firm, but is also president of the IUCN Oil Palm Task Force. In short, he is a person directly interested in the issue.

    But let's get back to the study. As Mejaard says, around 12,3 million hectares of land are used to grow coconut palms, compared to 18,9 million for oil palm. Coconut oil, used in a wide variety of food and cosmetic products and famous for its benefits, enjoys a much better reputation. Consumers associate it more with tropical islands and white-sand beaches than with deforestation associated with the plantation of the palm trees from which it is made.

    According to the study, an undeserved success, at least in terms of environmental consequences. In fact, the authors calculated the number of species threatened by the cultivation of seven vegetable oil crops and, according to the results, coconut oil threatens 20,3 species for every million tons of oil produced. For olive oil and palm oil, these numbers are 4,1 and 3,8 species respectively; for sunflower oil, it is 0,05.


    Coconut oil worse than palm oil for biodiversity. The study sparked controversy

    © Current Biology


    According to the document's supplemental information, the number for coconut oil is actually 18,3, not 20,3; when Science inquired about the discrepancy, co-author Jesse Abrams of the University of Exeter acknowledged that the calculation contains an error that the authors would have asked the journal to correct. But 18.3 is still a very high number.

    "The result of our study was a surprise," said Meijaard. The fact is that coconut is grown particularly on tropical islands "many of which possess a substantial number of species found nowhere else in the world."

    Some species have already become extinct because their habitat has given way to the coconut palm, Meijaard points out, including the white-eyed Marianne (Zosterops semiflavus), a bird in the Seychelles, and the Ontong Java flying fox (Pteropus howensis). which were last seen in 1945.

    Today, coconut plantations threaten the Philippine tragulus (Tragulus nigricans) and Sangihe tarsier (Tarsius sangirensis), a small primate endemic to the Indonesian island of Sangihe, according to the IUCN assessment.

    But other experts say the study paints a misleading picture of the matter. The vast majority of threatened coconut palm species live in small island nations that together produce only 8 percent of global coconut oil production, he says. Meine van Noordwijk, ricercatore senior presso il World Agroforestry Center.

    Almost 80% of coconut oil comes from Indonesia, the Philippines and India. Excluding small producers from the analysis would produce a very different result, says Van Noordwijk, pointing out that cocci are often planted alongside other crops and therefore it is difficult to assess the damage of individual coconut oil production.


    Sheherazade, a biologist On the ground that Tambora Muda Indonesia, an organization for Indonesian young environmentalists, runs, agrees:


    "We need a finer spatial analysis to discern which crop favors deforestation," he said.

    Sheherazade then notes that the picture is almost exactly the opposite of that assessed by a different, more commonly used metric: palm oil threatens 17 species per million hectares of crops, compared to 5,3 for olive oil. coconut. But Meijaard says quantifying species risk per million tons of oil is more relevant than per hectare.

    even the primatologist Adriano Lameira of the University of Warwick, sarcastically expressed a comment on the new study which, he said, could become the ideal reference for the wood industry when it has to justify habitat destruction.

     

    Dear logging companies, should you ever need to justify your destructive and extractive (illegal) activities in the Amazon + SE Asia, or protection against nature conservation NGO’s or legal action, please refer to the following paper in @CurrentBiology : https://t.co/gD110xRhAJ

    — Adriano R. Lameira (@lameira_adriano) July 15, 2020

    Some critics have obviously also pointed to the potential conflict of interest of Meijaard which has received funding from an Indonesian palm oil company and the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, a large group that seeks to make the sector more environmentally friendly.

    Co-author Douglas Sheil, a professor of tropical conservation at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, says the authors did not seek to slander coconuts, but instead wanted to allow consumers to better evaluate which vegetable oils to buy.

    "Consumers lack objective guidance on the environmental impacts of agricultural production, compromising their ability to make informed decisions," says Sheil. Coconut is seen as an innocent crop because "global consumers rely heavily on the information they receive from the media, which is often provided by those with vested interests."

    The authors agree with critics that the data in the paper is not perfect and call for further research.

    One thing is certain, we must carefully evaluate the alternatives we choose with respect to palm oil and not judge by side. It would be important, however, to decide in the best possible way and with awareness, that the researches were completely independent.

    Fonti: The Conversation / Science

    Read also:

    Coconut oil: what if it's not so beneficial to health?

    Peru approves a ban on deforestation to make room for palm oil

    The real victims of the palm oil industry are the orangutans

    Monkeys chained and treated like "machines": the dark side of coconuts

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