Mongabay | Can jurisdictional certification curb palm oil deforestation in Indonesia?

Although the negative social and environmental effects of oil palm expansion reflect a failure of decentralized governance, local governments have not yet been a major part of the efforts to solve the problem. Governments were notably absent from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, formed in 2004 to promote the sustainable production and use of palm oil, and its certification systems. Since 2010, zero deforestation pledges from producer and buyer companies became a trend, including business groups such as the Consumer Goods Forum, followed by governments in developed countries, through commitments such as the Amsterdam Declaration in 2015. Many companies set a date of 2020 as the target for zero deforestation supply chains. With just a few months until 2020, most of these pledges are unlikely to be met. There are many reasons that these commitments have been challenging to implement, including: splitting the market, deepening rural food insecurity and poverty, penalizing farmers and farm businesses who are striving to comply with the law, antagonizing governments and farmers in target regions, and creating too many new requirements for producers and processors, to name a few.

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