The Political Ecology of Palm Oil Production (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
This thesis analyses the emergence of environmental governance in palm oil sector in Indonesia, the world's largest producer. Focusing on the establishment of Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) in 2011, this study is the first systematic examination of Indonesian palm oil producers and regulators to the emergence and increasing influence of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Indonesian producers' perceptions, attitudes and actions are analysed within a unique theoretical and conceptual framework that views ISPO as a form of state-centred environmental governance that flourished in the fertile soil of Indonesia's historical legacy of sovereignty and corporatism.
Sustainable Palm Oil Governance
Advances in Biological Sciences Research
In response to the unsustainable practice of palm oil plantation, several NGOs, palm oil companies and investors established the Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004. This organization introduced a voluntary Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) brand through a series of auditing processes of sustainable principle and criteria application in palm oil industry. Based on that backdrop, this study aims to examine how RSPO as private governance emerged, particularly in the Indonesian context. It also provides the explanation about RSPO characteristics as well as the advantages and its limitations. In addition. this study addresses how the Indonesian government relates to RSPO. The methodology of this study is qualitative which is based on secondary sources of data. It uses information such as from public and private reports as well as other sources of information including report from civil society organizations that involve in environmental and social issues within the palm oil sector. The findings of this research suggest that there are three explanations with regard to the RSPO emergence. First, it has been driven by government's low performance in handling issues concerning social and environmental impacts of palm oil industry in Indonesia. Second, the controversy about palm oil commodity advantage and disadvantage at international level has also stimulated RSPO establishment. Finally, the RSPO is enhanced by the cooperation between transnational corporations and NGO certification initiative. In terms of its advantages, RSPO brings a positive image for palm oil companies. However, RSPO also has several limitations. First, the RSPO has lack of accountability. Second, the RSPO is a costly mechanism. Third, RSPO has lack of legitimacy from the national stakeholder such as the Indonesian government and palm oil companies association.
The Oil Palm Governance: Challenges of Sustainability Policy in Indonesia
Sustainability
Nowadays, Indonesian palm oil faces agrarian, environmental, and social issues and has been subject to sharp criticism from the international community for many years. To answer this problem, the Indonesian government implemented a strategy through certification which ensured the achievement of sustainability standards, especially on the upstream side of the palm oil supply chain. The implementation of Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) was an ultimate instrument that applied in particular to smallholders oriented towards managing land legal issues, plantation business licenses, plant seeds, and environmental management and to farmer organizations at the local level. However, this process faced quite complex challenges in the form of structural barriers that are very constraining. This study revealed the occurrence of the phenomenon of hollow governance when regulations are absent or collide with each other. The study also revealed institutional power and multi-level governance ...
2018
• Different types of interactions are emerging involving public and private (non-state) actors across sustainability initiatives in the palm oil sector in Indonesia. • Such initiatives include the development of government standards for sustainable palm oil, legislation related to the setting aside of conservation areas, a 'wave' of provincial and district Green Growth programs, a focus on jurisdictional approaches, and efforts around smallholder registration. These have been accompanied by the emergence of a number of political 'champions' in the form of provincial and district leaders. • Some initiatives can help to implement immediate specific sustainability objectives by filling implementation gaps, by bearing some operational costs and by speeding up regulatory change. • To bring about the transformation and to move beyond a proliferation of pilot schemes, interactions would need to survive political cycles and align with ongoing national processes of reform around natural resource policy. • Those initiatives intended as innovative pilots or to kick start a process in unclear legal contexts may benefit from acting quickly outside of more formal state systems. However, there are clear benefits in integrating initiatives into existing executive systems to help weather and uncertain electoral cycles. • Some actions by non-state actors act to strengthen the capacity of public authority and accountability, whereas others can weaken or undermine these public systems.
AGST Working Paper Series, 2019
Despite the proliferating amount of literature regarding legitimacy of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) initiatives, little is known about the dynamics of the VSS initiative’s legitimacy and its legitimization process at the grass-roots level. In an attempt to fill this gap, our study compares discourses in both the national context of Indonesia as well as the sub-national context of the Melawi District, in West Kalimantan province, to uncover RSPO’s legitimization process and its effect on VSS initiatives in both contexts. We found that there is a lag in the phases between the national and local levels of the RSPO toward political legitimacy. While in the national context the process had progressed from Phase I (initiation phase) to Phase II (gathering wider support and contestation phase), the legitimization process of the RSPO in Melawi context, however, was found to be lagged behind. We argue that the observed lag in the RSPO’s legitimization process is the result of Indonesia’s decentralization policy, the spatial-temporal trajectory of oil palm development in Indonesia, as well as the voluntariness of the RSPO itself. On the other hand, similarities in the discourse involved in the legitimization process is found in both the national and the local context, in which strong market logic and development paradigms are embedded in the discourses and sustainable palm oil certification is understood by many of the actors as nothing more than a marketing strategy.
Multi Stakeholder Engagement in Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil Governance
Jurnal Manajemen & Agribisnis, 2018
Natural resource management generally involves parties with conflicting interests and roles. The emergence of a negative issue on palm oil development in Indonesia heralded by NGOs and vegetable oil competitor countries, for some groups, is considered merely a trade war. The rapid development of Indonesia's oil palm has made this commodity a source of global vegetable oil as well as risen a controversy over its sustainability aspects covering environmental, socioeconomic and health issues. The significant increase of palm oil research led to the need to enrich the study's discussion on the sustainability aspect and involved the participation of the related stakeholders. This study is an early stage of a research based on the environmental communication theory to identify the problems and analyze the stakeholders involved in palm oil governance in Indonesia by using stakeholder analysis tools. The methods of data collection in this study included literature review, text analysis, in-depth interviews as well as direct observations. The study finding shows that the Ministry of Agriculture as the main actor in palm oil governance in Indonesia is required to share its authority. This indicates that palm oil sustainability issue is not the responsibility of a particular ministry but has become a national issue that requires the participation and collaboration of all relevant stakeholders.
Analysis of the Palm Oil Governance in Indonesia
The rapid growth of demand for palm oil and expansion of plantations for its production induced complex Economic, Social and Environmental issues. Negative environmental consequences associated with the palm oil production in Indonesia is striking and becoming an increasingly concerning problem. This paper is providing a descriptive analysis of the palm oil issue, a premise to the results of the initiatives used to achieve sustainable development; featuring political legitimacy and institutional fit, and a final analysis of such techniques and what can further be done to reach the sustainability goal.
A policy network analysis of the palm oil sector in Indonesia: What sustainability to expect?
In their campaigns, and in a context where tropical deforestation remains an unsolved problem, NGOs have increasingly targeted those brands and companies that leverage the growing consumer sentiment in developed countries that the tropical commodities they consume-such as palm oil, soy, beef and timberhave contributed to deforestation, loss of biodiversity and social dislocation. These campaigns have led to the emergence of corporate commitments to sustainability, and more specifically to the concept of zero deforestation, by a multitude of actors along the commodity supply chains from growers to processors, traders, consumer goods manufacturers and retailers. The production of soy, palm oil, timber and beef is a major driver of tropical deforestation, and producers and buyers in these sectors have been under particular pressure to eliminate deforestation from their production practices and supply chains. 1 A wave of pledges culminated with the New York Declaration on Forests in September 2014, when governments, private companies and NGOs endorsed the goal of halving the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 and ending it by 2030.
2018
The governance arrangements of sustainable oil palm initiatives in Indonesia Multilevel interactions between public and private actors Key messages • Different types of interactions are emerging involving public and private (non-state) actors across sustainability initiatives in the palm oil sector in Indonesia. • Such initiatives include the development of government standards for sustainable palm oil, legislation related to the setting aside of conservation areas, a 'wave' of provincial and district Green Growth programs, a focus on jurisdictional approaches, and efforts around smallholder registration. These have been accompanied by the emergence of a number of political 'champions' in the form of provincial and district leaders. • Some initiatives can help to implement immediate specific sustainability objectives by filling implementation gaps, by bearing some operational costs and by speeding up regulatory change. • To bring about the transformation and to move beyond a proliferation of pilot schemes, interactions would need to survive political cycles and align with ongoing national processes of reform around natural resource policy. • Those initiatives intended as innovative pilots or to kick start a process in unclear legal contexts may benefit from acting quickly outside of more formal state systems. However, there are clear benefits in integrating initiatives into existing executive systems to help weather and uncertain electoral cycles. • Some actions by non-state actors act to strengthen the capacity of public authority and accountability, whereas others can weaken or undermine these public systems.