Koh Lian Pin on "The oil palm conundrum: how oil palm agriculture affects
tropical biodiversity and what can we do about it."

Monday 24th Nov 2008: 10am to 11am
DBS Conference Room, Block S3 Level 5

Host: Dr. Tan Tiang Wah, Hugh

Abstract: Southeast Asia contains 11% of the world's remaining tropical forests
and harbors numerous endemic and rare species, many of which are restricted to
forest habitats. Unfortunately, this region also suffers from the highest
relative rate of deforestation of any major tropical region, which could result
in the loss of up to three-quarters of its original forest cover and numerous
species by 2100.

Over the past few decades, oil palm agriculture has expanded throughout
Southeast Asia (and beyond). How has this expansion affected the region's
forests and biodiversity? What can we do about it? Does biodiversity provide any
benefits to the oil palm plantations themselves?

My study reveals that between 1990 and 2005 more than half of oil palm expansion
in Malaysia and Indonesia had likely occurred at the expense of forests. I also
showed that the conversion of forests to oil palm results in substantial
biodiversity losses. My further analysis suggests that biodiversity in oil palm
plantations could be marginally enhanced by altering vegetation characteristics
at the local level, and by increasing forest cover at the landscape level.

Although, the magnitudes of these biodiversity enhancements are low relative to
the biodiversity of undisturbed tropical forests, these additional species both
are intrinsically valuable and may provide economically-important services for
oil palm agriculture.

Indeed, through an exclusion experiment, I found that insectivorous birds
inhabiting oil palm plantations do reduce insect herbivory damage to oil palms,
and thus may be providing a natural pest control service for oil palm growers.

There is little doubt that oil palm expansion poses a real and significant
threat to Southeast Asia's biodiversity. On the other, the oil palm industry
contributes substantially to the region's developing economies, and is important
to the welfare of its rural poor. The
conflicts between oil palm expansion and biodiversity conservation will not be
resolved by each side portraying the other as villains.

Instead, local peoples, conservation groups, oil palm companies, and governments
must work together to come up with unconventional and creative solutions to this
problem.


About the speaker:
Koh Lian Pin graduated from the National University of Singapore with degrees in
Bachelor and Master of Science, and from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Research
Fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), and an
Honorary Research
Associate at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of
Singapore.

Lian Pin has a keen interest in pure and applied ecology, particularly in the
use of evidence-based and quantitative approaches to understand how humans are
affecting the environment. While at Princeton, Lian Pin studied how the spread
of industrial agriculture affects forests and biodiversity in the tropics, and
explored ways to reconcile conservation with agriculture. He is currently
studying the potential impacts of rising global biofuel demand on ecosystems and
human livelihoods. He believes there is an urgent need to reexamine the way
humans are consuming natural resources.

Over the past six years, Lian Pin has published over 30 peer reviewed articles
in journals, including Nature, Science, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, PLoS
One, Ecological Applications, Journal of Applied Ecology, Conservation Biology,
Biological Conservation, Biodiversity and Conservation, Conservation Letters,
Journal of Biogeography, Diversity and Distributions, Animal Conservation,
Journal of Tropical Ecology, Biotropica, and Ecological Research.